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Education  in  Chakleston.— TheS^an  is 
indebted  to  Mayor  Courtenay,  of  Charleston, 
for  exceedingly  interesting  publications  in 
referance  to  education   in  that  city,  includ- 
ing articles  on   "Manual  Training  in  Com- 
mon Schoolfl,"  an  essay  on  the  value  of  clas- 
sical  learning  by  the  late  Hugh  S.  Legare, 
and  the  reports  of  the  State  and  city  pub- 
lic   schools,  academics    and    hij,'h    schools, 
together     with     a  sketch     of   the    history  I 
of  the   Collfore   of  Charleston,    over  which 
Prof.  Henry  E.  Shepherd,  formerly  of  this  ' 
city,  has  been  called  to  preside.    The  chief  j 
value,  however,  of  Mayor    Courtenay's  re-  ; 
-view  of  the  school  work  of  the  year  past  is  '' 
in  the  evidence  it  contains  of  the  possibility, 
by  proper  procedure,  of   enlisting  the  best 
intelligence     and    character    of   a    munici- 
pality     in    behalf   of    its    educational     in- 
terests.     The     hand      of     the      politician 
18  not  traceable    anywhere    in    the     oubli- 
cations    before    us,  either    in    the    theories 
of  education  adopted,  the  books  prescribed 
the  teachers  appointed,   the  work   done  or 
the     expense     incurred.    The     Charleston 
Bchools  are  conducted,   it  would   appear,  in 
the  broadest  and  most  liberal  spirit,  so  that 
they  are  to-day  fully  equal  in  progressive- 
ness  and  efficiency   to  any  in  the  United 
States.    That  this  is  the  case  is  evidenced 
among  other  things  by  the  intelligent  dis- 
cussion given  in  the  school  board  reports  to  ' 
the  pressing   educational    problems    of  the 
day.    *    *    «    In  the  light  of  these  facts  it 
would  appear  that  the  change    that  took 
place  ia  1876  was  an  advantageous  one,— 
j^altimore  Sun. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/educationincharlOOchar 


1 882.]   SOME    CAUSES  OF  FAILURE  AMONG   TEACHERS.  93 

The  future  of  the  commonwealth  depends  upon  the  teacher ;  he 
molds  the  men  and  women  of  the  future.  What  teachers  are  to  their 
profession,  that  it  will  be  ;  what  it  is,  that  will  the  youth  of  our  land 
become ;  and  what  they  become,  determines  the  whole  future  of  the 
state,  —  nay,  more,  of  all  states,  of  eternity  itself.  Whatever  our 
religious  tenets,  we  must  believe  in  an  immortality  of  influence ;  and 
theeforcesthat  teachers  set  at  work  to-day  in  their  pupils  will  cease 
to  act  only  when  soul  ceases  to  impress  soul. 


94  EDUCATION.  [Sept. 


HOX.    //'.I/.   .-/.    COURTENAY,    CHARLESTON,   S.  C. 

We  present  with  this  issue  a  likeness  of  Mayor  William  A.  Courtenay,  of 
Charleston,  S.  C.     He  was  born  in  that  city  on  February  4,  1831,  and  at 
the  ao^e  of    14  went  into  business  with  a  very  limited  education.     In  the 
period  between  1S50  and  i860  he  conducted,  with  his  brother,  an  extensive 
and  very  successful  publishing  and  book-selling  business  in  Charleston,  and 
eagerly  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  for  reading  which  his  surround- 
in<^s  ;ifforded.     He  here  formed  the  acquaintance  of  many  of  the  leading 
professional  and  literary  men  of   that   cultured  community,  and  profited 
greatly  by  his  intercourse  with  them.     It  was  remarked  at  that  time  that  he 
associated  mainly  with  men  older  than  himself.     In  the  spring  of  i860  he 
was  invited  to  assume  the  business  management  of  the  Charleston  Mercury, 
and  on  October  i  entered  upon  these  duties.     In  a  few  weeks  his  ability  as 
an  organizer  and  manager  made  itself  felt,  and  the  business  affairs  of  the 
paper  were  administered  with  the  most  satisfactory  results  to  the  proprietors. 
While  here  employed,  the  great  fire  of  December,  1861,  swept  through  the 
city.     Although  without  previous  training  or  experience,  he  undertook  to 
report  this  disastrous  conflagration  in  great  detail.     Beginning  on  Cooper 
River  at  the  foot  of  Hasel   street,  where  the  fire  originated,  he  followed  its 
course  on  foot  to  Ashley  River  on  the  southwest,  and  in  a  report,  embracing 
ten  or  twelve  columns  of  the  Mercury,  he  gave  the  boundaries  of  the  fire, 
the  names  of  the  owners  and  occupants  of  houses,  names  of  streets  and 
numbers  of  the  houses,  and  brief  descriptions  of  churches,  buildings,  and 
noted  residences  destroyed.     This  was  the  only  account  of  the  calamity 
published  in  Charleston  on  so  complete  a  scale,  and  attracted  considerable 
attention  at  the  time.     Although  not  connected  with  the  editorial  staff,  he 
was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  paper,  and  improved  himself  very  much 
as  a  writer  by  this  privilege.     At  the  close  of  1861  he  left  the  Mercury  and 
entered  the  Confederate  army,  where  he  served  until  its  surrender  in  1S65. 
After  the  war.  Mayor  Courtenay,  like  the  rest  of  the  men  of  the  South, 
found  himself  in  poverty.     As  former  employments  were  not  yet  possible, 
his  first  work  was  to  diive  a  wagon  for  freight  through  the  desolated  region 
between  Newbury  and  Orangeburg,  S.  C,  a  distance  of  eighty  miles.     The 
railroads  having  been  destroyed,  tiiis  was  the  only  transportation  possible 
for  many  months.     From  this  beginning  he  established,  while  residing  at 
Newbury,  an   extensive   and   profitable   forwarding   business.      When  the 
railroads  were  rebuilt  these  profits  of  course  disappeared,  and  in  the  spring 
of  1866  he  returned  to  Charleston,  where  he  soon  became  the  manager  of 
steamship  lines  from  that  port  to  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  still  con- 
tinues to  hold  that  position.     While  a  democrat  i*i  politics,  Mayor  Courtenay 
Jias  been  distinguished  by  the  liberality  of  his  views,  and  as  Captain  of  the 


1 882.]      HON.    WM.  A.   COURTENAY,   CHARLESTON,   S.  C.  95 

Washington  Light  Infantry  he  was  greatly  instrumental  in  the  acceptance  of 
invitations  which  resulted  in  the  presence  of  that  historic  corps  at  the  cen- 
tennial celebrations  at  Bunker  Hill  and  Philadelphia,  an  exchange  of  mil- 
itary courtesy  which  was  productive  of  the  kindliest  feelings. 

No  Southern  city  suffered  more  than  Charleston  during  the  war.  Fires 
were  frequent ;  shot  and  shell  had  done  their  ravaging  work  ;  fifty  millions 
of  real  and  personal  property  had  sunk  to  less  than  twenty  millions.  The 
subsequent  rule  of  the  military  and  the  ignorant  had  further  unsettled  public 
and  private  affairs  ;  the  city  debt  had  greatly  increased.  As  late  as  1S79 
grave  apprehensions  were  expressed  as  to  city  affairs.  In  the  municipal 
election  occurring  that  year,  for  a  term  of  four  years,  strenuous  effort  was 
made  to  secure  a  strong  business  administration.  Mr.  Courtenay  was 
selected  to  make  this  laborious  canvass,  which  continued  six  months,  and 
resulted  in  his  election,  with  an  excellent  Board  of  Aldermen.  Since  then 
great  changes  have  taken  place.  City  securities  have  advanced  fifty  per 
cent.  The  debt  has  been  materially  reduced.  Business  is  conducted  in  all 
departments  on  strictly  mercantile  principles.  Miles  of  stone  roadway  have 
been  laid  ;  real  estate  values  show  a  marked  advance.  The  annual  average 
cost  of  the  city  government,  from  1870-1879,  was  $800,000,  while  since 
1879  it  has  been  $650,000. 

In  addition  to  these  beneficial  reforms,  what  has  most  distinguished  Mayor 
Courtenay  since  his  entrance  upon  his  administration  has  been  the  active 
interest  he  has  displayed  in  the  cause  of  education.  Before  the  war,  owing 
to  the  social  condition  of  the  South  where  no  large  middle  class  existed, 
and  the  leading  portion  of  the  community  were  able  to  give  their  children 
the  costliest  advantages,  the  common  school  system  was  neither  well  under- 
stood nor  generally  established.  To  this  general  rule  Charleston  has 
always  been  a  notable  exception,  and  has  been  distinguished  from  the 
earliest  times  by  its  enlightened  and  liberal  policy  in  all  matters  that  con- 
cern education.  As  long  ago  as  181 1,  when  the  General  Assembly  of  South 
Carolina  passed  an  act  authorizing  the  establishment  of  public  schools,  the 
allotment  to  Charleston  was  a  fund  of  $5,100  and  five  teachers.  In  1880 
the  fund  had  grown  to  $62,000,  and  the  number  of  teachers  to  ninety-one, 
and  in  that  year  the  white  pupils  attending  these  schools  numbered  2,079 
and  the  colored  2,069.  ^^  i860  the  number  of  white  children  in  the  public 
schools  was  about  4,000,  so  that  by  the  addition  of  the  colored  population, 
although  the  number  of  possible  school-children  has  doubled,  the  number 
of  children  attending  the  schools  has  remained  the  same.  The  five  public 
schools,  crowded  as  they  are  by  the  present  attendance,  do  not  afford  ac- 
commodations for  more  than  half  the  school  population  of  the  city.  This 
fact  exists  in  spite  of  the  large  fund  above  mentioned,  40  per  cent,  of  which 
is  annually  collected  by  a  voluntary  extra  tax  on  city  property  to  supple- 
ment the  constitutional  State  tax  of  two  mills.  Charleston,  in  a  word,  is 
taxed  for  purposes  of  education  more  than  half  as  much  again  as  Boston, 
a  city  the  reputation  of  whose  schools  is  world-wide ;  and  although  the 


96  EDUCATION.  [Sept. 

colored  population  paj-  but  a  very  small  percentage  of  this  taxation,  their 
schools  receive  over  50  per  cent,  of  the  fund  expended  on  education. 

These  interesting  facts  we  derive  from  Mayor  Courtenay's  annua]  report 
of  1S79-18S0.  Devoting  a  large  space  to  the  consideration  of  education 
in  Charleston,  he  gives  a  most  exhaustive  review  of  the  history  and  present 
condition  in  that  city,  depicts  the  sacrifices  which  are  being  made  bv  a 
population  impoverished  by  war  and  bad  government,  and  closes  with  a 
series  of  masterly  arguments  and  an  eloquent  appeal  in  favor  of  national 
aid  to  the  public  school  system  at  the  South.  In  the  latter  connection  he 
gives  especial  consideration  to  the  problem  of  the  education  of  the  colored 
population,  "who,"  he  says,  "constitute  an  exceptional  class  of  our  popu- 
lation. They  had  no  opportunity  of  obtaining  education  and  acquiring 
property.  They  are  not  responsible  for  their  ignorance.  They  have  had 
no  teachers,  and  their  parents  were  as  ignorant  as  themselves.  They  are, 
therefore,  necessarily  incompetent  to  exercise  with  discretion  the  elective 
franchise.  Justice  to  them  requires  that  they  should  be  given  that  educa- 
tion which  alone  can  make  them  responsible  citizens  in  their  duties  to 
others  and  in  protecting  their  own  rights."  , 

Not  only  do  the  views  of  Mayor  Courtenay  extend  to  the  establishment 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  public  schools  for  the  needs  of  the  population, 
white  and  black,  but  it  is  also  his  aim  that  the  scope  of  usefulness  of  those 
schools  be  considerably  enlarged.  He  does  not  believe  in  the  theory  that 
the  obligations  of  the  State  to  the  public  schools  is  fully  discharged  by 
teaching  the  rudiments  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  Aiteniiou 
should  be  paid  to  the  physical  as  well  as  the  mental  training  of  the  pupils. 
As  the  public  school  is  not  only  the  nursery  for  the  professional  and  busi- 
ness man,  but  also  for  the  artisan  and  mechanic,  trained  muscles  and  a 
quick  eye,  as  well  as  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  constitute  the  capital 
of  a  part  of  the  pupils.  He  is,  therefore,  a  strong  advocate  of  a  system  of 
manual  training  in  the  public  schools,  in  order  that  "  (i)  Pupils  may  be  pre- 
pared to  earn  a  living  more  cjuickly  and  more  readily  upon  leaving  the 
public  schools  :  (2)  that  the  dignity  and  importance  of  manual  labor  may 
be  appreciated  more  highly,  since  pupils  will  learn  that  study  and  prepara- 
tion are  essential  to  proficiency  in  the  trades  ;  (3)  that  training  of  the  body 
may  not  be  neglected  while  the  intellect  is  developed." 

But  the  energies  of  Mayor  Courtenay  have  not  been  directed  merely  lo 
the  improvement  and  enlargement  of  the  common  school  system,  but  also 
to  the  establishment  and  advancement  of  those  great  facilities  for  higher 
education  which  Charleston  possesses.  The  high  school,  founded  in  1839 
as  a  training  school  preparatory  to  a  business  or  collegiate  life,  receives 
from  the  city  $4,000,  and  has  a  total  income  of  about  $11,000.  During 
Mayor  Courtenay's  administration  this  school  has  been  removed  to  a  com- 
modious building,  with  over  an  acre  of  ground,  in  the  central  section  of  ihe 
city,  and  the  course  of  study  entirely  remodeled  and  reorganized.  He  has 
aptly  illustrated  his  faith  in  physical  culture  by  establishing  a  gymnasium,  a 


1 88 2.]      HON,    WM.  A.   COURTENAY,   CHARLESTON,   S.  C.  C)7 

model  structure  in  size  and  ventilation,  and  equipped  with  the  latest  ap- 
paratus for  exercise.  In  charge  of  an  excellent  instructor,  its  influence  on 
the  school  has  been  marked  by  the  happiest  results.  To  receive  the  pupil 
who  may  desire  a  liberal  education,  after  his  course  at  the  high  school  is 
finished,  the  College  of  Charleston  stands  ready.  This  institution  has  at 
present  the  entire  income  of  $300,000  applicable  to  its  support,  occupies 
an  entire  square,  with  extensive  buildings,  a  valuable  museum  of  natural 
history,  and  a  library. 

Before  the  war  one  of  the  most  distinguished  educational  institutions  at 
the  South  was  the  State  Military  Academy  of  South  Carolina.  Established 
in  1842  and  closed  in  1865  by  the  necessity  of  the  times,  during  the  twenty- 
three  years  of  its  history  it  was  celebrated  for  the  thoroughness  of  its  train- 
ing and  the  high  character  and  extended  influence  of  its  graduates.  Since 
the  close  of  the  war  the  buildings  have  been  in  the  possession  of  the  United 
States  Government.  For  several  years  past  Mayor  Courtenay  has  been 
among  the  most  active  and  effective  workers  for  the  reestablishment  of  this 
great  academy.  Even  before  his  election,  at  his  suggestion  as  Captain,  the 
Washington  Light  Infantry  dedicated  the  2 2d  of  February,  1879,  to  the 
presentation,  through  their  orator,  of  this  institution  to  the  favorable  con- 
sideration of  the  Legislature  and  people.  As  a  result  of  these  and  other 
efforts  the  academy  will  reopen  in  Charleston  on  the  ist  of  October  with 
one  hundred  and  fifty  cadets  from  all  parts  of  South  Carolina.  The  course 
of  study  as  nearly  as  possible  resembles  that  of  West  Point,  is  highly 
scientific  and  technical,  with  modern  languages  in  addition.  It  is  a  sig- 
nificant fact  that  the  orator  of  the  Washington  Light  Infantry  anniversary 
of  1879,  the  State  Superintendent  of  Education,  in  a  little  more  than  three 
years  afterward,  is  unanimously  nominated  for  Governor  of  South  Caro- 
lina with  a  popular  enthusiasm  throughout  the  State  which  heralds  his  cer- 
tain election. 

Mayor  Courtenay's  annual  report  of  education  of  1879-1880  is  well  sup- 
plemented by  that  of  1880-188 1.  The  former  is  devoted  to  the  public 
schools,  while  the  latter  discusses  the  advantages  of  Charleston  for  higher 
education,  the  importance  of  physical  training  in  education,  and  appeals  for 
the  generous  establishment  of  scholarships  and  foundations  to  confer  a 
"  blessing  on  hundreds  of  boys  who  might  otherwise  grow  up  neglected  in 
their  preparations  for  the  duties  of  life."  The  two  reports  are  a  revelation 
in  themselves  to  any  one  interested  in  education  at  the  South.  With  the 
conspicuous  advantages  enjoyed  by  Charleston,  as  set  forth  in  the  report  of 
1880-1881,  there  is  still  wanting  that  unity  of  administration  which  can 
alone  assure  the  full  measure  of  success.  To  establish  a  system  of  school 
government  which  shall  include  the  public  schools,  the  high  school,  the 
college,  and  the  military  institute,  Mayor  Courtenay  is  taking  active 
measures,  and,  supported  as  he  is  by  influential  citizens,  will  doubtless  ac- 
complish it.  An  important  step  has  been  taken  in  this  direction  by  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Shepherd,  for  many  years  Superintendent  of  Education 


98  EDL'CA  T/OX.  [Sept. 

of  Baltimore,  to  the  presidency  of  the  College  of  Charleston  ;  and  by  making 
this  office  include  the  supervisorship  of  the  high  school  of  Charleston, 
where  a  complete  unitlcation  of  school  government  is  established,  it  is  the 
hope  and  ambition  of  Mayor  Courtenay  that,  with  her  institutions  of  learn- 
ing on  a  sound  financial  basis,  and  under  the  supervision  of  one  body, 
with  able  instructors  and  numerous  pupils,  Charleston  may  rise  to  the  dig- 
nity of  an  educational  centre,  and  attract  to  her  schools  not  only  the  youth 
of  South  Carolina,  but  many  from  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State. 

We  give  this  sketch,  —  although  short  and  imperfect,  —  because  we  feel 
the  greatest  gratification  that  in  a  portion  of  the  South,  at  least,  such  good 
work  is  being  done  in  the  cause  of  education,  and  because  the  Mayor  of 
Charleston  is  the  only  municipal  executive  we  know  whose  highest  ambition 
is  in  such  a  cause.  He  has  clearly  seen  that  the  salvation  of  the  South 
must  result  from  the  general  education  of  the  masses  by  the  common  school 
system,  and  that  home  facilities  for  higher  education  are  doubly  valuable 
because  training  to  the  mind  is  afforded  without  sending  the  boy  to  other 
cities,  where  he  loses  the  association  of  his  family  and  misses  a  part  of  his 
life  education  which  nothing  can  supply  ;  nor  can  we  better  express  our 
appreciation  of  him  or  his  work  than  by  quoting  his  own  eloquent  words : 
'•  May  the  day  soon  come  when,  in  response  to  so  earnest  solicitation  and 
so  grave  warning  from  men  who  represent  the  conscience  and  wisdom  of 
this  people,  every  child  in  the  city  and  State  and  througiiout  the  whole 
South  can  find  an  entrance  into  the  school-house,  where  alone  he  may  be 
made  a  freeman  and  worthy  of  the  trusts  and  capable  of  the  duties  of 
Anerican  citizenship." 


EDUCATION  IN  CHARLESTON 


1882 


MANUAL  TRAINING. 

"  ibt.  The  introilmtion  into  Public  Schools  of  proper  appliances  for  the  development  of  the 
sense  perception  of  pupils  in  regard  to  color,  form,  proportion,  &c.,  by  contact  with  models  and 
with  natural  objects. 

"  -/:d.  The  introduction  into  ( jrammar  Schools  of  simple  physical  and  chemical  experiments, 
for  the  purpose  of  acquainting  pupils,  through  original  observation,  with  the  elements  of  chem- 
ical and  physical  science,  and  their  common  applications  in  the  arts. 

"  3d.  The  teaching  of  drawing,  not  as  an  accomplishment,  but  as  a  language  for  the  graphic 
presentation  of  the  facts  of  forms  and  of  objects  ;  for  the  representation  of  the  appearance  of 
objects  ;  and  also  as  a  means  of  developing  taste  in  industrial  design. 

'■4th.  The  introduction  into  Grammar  and  High  Schools  of  instruction  in  the  use  of  tools, 
not  for  their  application  in  any  particidar  trade  or  trades,  but  for  developing  skill  of  hand  in 
the  fundamental  manipulations  connected  with  the  industrial  arts,  and  also  as  a  means  of  men- 
tal development." 

PHYSICAL    CULTURE. 

"  The  crcctiiin  (if  a  gymnasium,  constructed  and  equipped  in  accordance  with  the  must  ad- 
vanced ideas,  and  the  appointment  of  au  accomplished  teacher  of  gymnastics,  have  also  con- 
tributed largely  to  the  efficiency  of  the  school.  In  my  visit,  the  past  summer,  to  se\cral  of  the 
leading  schools  in  New  England,  I  saw  no  arrangements  for  physical  training  which  would 
compare  with  those  provided  for  the  pupils  of  the  High  School.  All  of  the  boys  have  improv- 
ed, and  some  who  were  in  delicate  health  are  becoming  strong  and  robust." 

J/r.  Dil'l'h's  High  School  Kcf'ort. 

CLASSICAL  AND    SCIENTIFIC   STUDIES. 

Professor  Seeley,  author  of  Eccc  Homo,  sums  up  the  controversy  in  a  single  .sentence,  which 
is  both  terse  and  clear.  "  H  there  is  any  result  which  may  be  .said  to  have  been  fairly  attained 
in  the  controversy,  it  is  this — that  science  must  come  in,  and  that  iuiis^iiag^c  must  not  go  oiit.'^ 

"  The  argument  we  so  often  hear  against  the  study  of  the  ancient  languages  conveyed  in  the 
question,  why  should  I  study  Greek  and  Latin  when  I  never  e.xpect  to  have  to  read  a  line  of 
either  in  my  business?  is  very  much  as  if  a  pupil  in  the  gymnastic  school  should  ask  the  teach- 
er, why  he  should  e.xercise  with  an  Indian  club  or  climb  a  pole  when  he  never  expects  to  use 
tlic  one  or  climb  the  other  in  his  business?" 


The  NE^vs  .\nu  Courier  Tob  Presses,  Cll.■\KEE^^■lo^,  S.  C. 


i;|)H  \Tlii.\  IN  CIIAKlJvSTd.X.S.  c. 


r  t)  N  1  r.  N  IS. 

I — MaXUAI.   TkAIXINi;    KKfoMMI-NliF.li    IN  CoMMuN   Sril.  lUI.S— I  I  s    I'kAC- 
TKAI.   Ol'KRATlOX    IN    TIIK    WokKINiiMAN's   ScilOiM     IN    NkW    VciKK. 
11  — SlI'KRINTKNIlENT   SiMoNS'    RkIOKT   OI"    Ci  IY    I'l  III.U     SCIIODI.s. 

llI~Hoi.Y  Communion  CiiLkiii  Insiiii  ik— Caiiiolu    s<  ihkh -,— \\  m  . 

i.iNCKoRi)  AcAiiKMV— Avery  Normal  Insiih  ii:. 
.  |\' — I'riti  ir  Sciiooi.  Work  in  Soith  Carolina  in  1SS2.  1  kom  mi   An- 

Nl'AL    KkI'URT    Ul      IIIK    SlAlK    Si  I'KUIN  I  KNIjKNT    UI'    KdI  CA  I  H  >N. 

V- Visit  ok  tmk  Rkv.  A.  1>.  Mavo,  D.  I).,   10  Ciiariksion. 

VI— Alt  ok  tiliNKRAI.  As-.EMIil.V  KKARKANcilNC.  t'l  IV  ScHool  l)IMKlt  IS 
AND  rROVIDINU  l-OR  A  New  Si  llool  HdAKH  AI  IIIK  Ml.NKH'AI 
lil.KfTION    DECEMISER.    1SS3. 

VII — Anniai.  ki-.i'oRr  ok  High  St  iiooi.— i.i.assk  ^    and    I'lni^nAi.   Ci  1 - 

Tl  RE   I-EADINC.    KEATLRES. 

\  III— 1  111.  iV>i.i.E(;e  ok  Charleston— I-'oi:ni>ei>  17S5— Iiie  lacii  ities  ir 

AIIURPS  KOR  LlllKRAl.  KUH  .\T|uN    Al     IIoME,  AM>    US  Cl  AIMS    ITuN 
THE   COMMINII  Y. 
I\ — KEOl'EXINt;    l>l-     IIIE    (irAlJEL    ACADE.MV    ()l  lOllER    ISL,    lSS2. 

\     '  •  \ssii  AI.  Learnin<; — An  Essay  uy   ihe  i  aie  1I'>.\.  Unm  S.  I.l- 

.KE,    EROM     THE    SOI  TIIEKN    REVIEW,    lS2^ 


M.Wr.XL  'rR.MMNC. 

W'c  send  olir  children  and  our  }'outh  to  scIkjoI  lu  educate 
tliem:  that  is,  to  train  them  to  develop  their  faculties,  and 
to  teach  them  such  thinc^sas  we  think  will  be  of  use  to  them 
in  uhaiever  path  of  life  their  future  lots  nia\'  be  cast.  To 
teach  these  elementary  branches — knowledge  needed  alike 
by  rich  and  b)-  jioor — is  the  promise  of  the  Tublic  School. 
Reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  have  for  ages,  by  common 
consent  of  schoolmen  everywhere,  been  assigned  as  indi.-- 
pen.sable  branches  of  learning,  and,  in  fact,  nian\-  have  re- 
stricted the  uses  of  the  I'ublic  Schools  to  these  three  ele- 
ments. The  tendency  of  our  da\-.  however,  has  been  to 
broaden  this  limited  course,  and  room  has  been  made  in 
aliiK^sl  all  Common  schoc^ls  for  geography,  grammar,  histor)- 


(Liy/\^ 


lidiicalioii  ill   C//iii/rs/o 


and  composition.  This  is  well,  and  worthy  of  commenda- 
tion, but  there  is  still  considerable  r.)om  for  further  im])ro\'e- 
ment.  There  are  other  J:)ranches  of  knowledj^e  that  have 
hitherto  been  neglected,  have  not  been  thought  necessary 
in  the  curriculum  of  the  common  school,  which,  it  seems  to 


any  particular  tradj  or  trades,  but  lor  developing  skill  of 
hand  in  the  fundamental  m:inipulalioas  connected  with  the 
industrial  arts,  and  also  as  a  m.wns  of  mental  development." 

The  recommendations  of  this  Committee  met  u  ith  m\' 
hearty  approval.  Object  teaching,  now  so  extremely  prac- 
ticed in  the  Kindergarten,  would  seem  to  mc  as  of  at  least 
as  much  importance  in  schools  for  children  of  larger  growth. 


550941 


*  M<i\'or  ■Coiir/itiiU's  Aniiiui/  Rciiii^.'. 

If  \vc  I.. Ill    n-.ich  a  b^iy  to   help   liinisclf;   if  we  cdiicalc  his 
eve  to  observe,  and   train  his   h.iiul,  even  w  ith   only  a  mod- 
crate  degree  of  skill,  to  execute  the  bidding  of  his   mind. 
we  shall  have  conferred  a  j^reat  boon,  not  so  much  for  what 
he  has  actually  learned,  as  for  havinij  put  him  in  the  way  of 
teaching  himself  alter  he  shall  have  left  school.     If  a  boy  is 
to    pursue    even    a   professional   career,    object  lessons    im- 
pressed upon   his   mind    in  tender  years  will   always  stand 
him  in  gootl  stead  ;   u  hcther  lie   is  t<i   be  a   law\-cr,  physic- 
ian, teacher  or  clergyman,  the  time  spent   in   obtaining  a 
knowledge  of  drawing   and  of  the   elements  of  ph)sics,  will 
not  have  been   spent   in  vain;  and    of  still  greater  use   will 
this    preparation    be   to    him    if   ho    is   to   be  a    farmer,  an 
engineer  and  artisan,  or  even  a  sailor.     Indeed,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  assert,  that  there  is  no  \ocation  a  man  may  be  en- 
gaged in.  after  he  has  entered   upon  the  struggle  of  life,  in 
which    a   knowledge  of  drawing  cannot   at   some  time    or 
other  be  extremely    useful   to  him.     So   it  is.  and    certainly 
to  a  greater  degree,  in   regard  to   the   abilit\-   to  handle  the 
more  simple   mechanical   tools,     I    have   known   men   who 
were  graduates  of  colleges  and  of  scientific  schools,  who  did 
not   know    how  to   drive  a   nail    into  a  board    fence.     The 
great  majority  of  the  boys  of  our  Public  Schools,  will,  in  all 
probability,  be  mechanics  or  farmers;  some  will  have  to  do 
with  railroad  construction  or  management  ;  w  ith  steamboats 
or  telegraphs;  and  all,  as  already  stated,  will  have  been  ad- 
vanced by  having  learned  at  school  the  use  of  hammer  and 
saw,  square  and  plane.     We  arc  told  by   the   press,  and  we 
.see  it  from  actual  observation,  that  the  old   apprentice  sys- 
tem in  our  workshops  and  factories  is  rapidly  passing  away. 
Now,  unless  we  make  some  such  provision  for  the  teaching 
of  the  rising  generation,  as  I  here  indicate,  wc  must  expect 
serious  difficulties  in  these  matters  at  no  distant  day.     The 
want  has  long  been  felt;  industrial  schools  and  schools  of 
technology  are  being  established   at  various   points   North 
and  West,  but  for  us,  it  seems  to  mc,  the  only  effectual  way 
of  providing  for  our  future  is  to  begin  at  the  beginning,  and 
lay  a  good   foundation  ;  in  other  words,  to  introduce  these 


Education  in  Charleston.  5 

elements  of  an  industrial  education  into  the  curriculum  of 
our  common  schools.  And  this  can  be  done.  lUit  to  be 
done  effectually,  it  must  not,  as  has  been  vainly  tried  here 
and  there,  be  left  to  the  caprice  of  either  tlie  children  or 
their  parents;  it  must  be  incorporated  into  the  regular 
course  of  studies  of  the  schools  ;  it  must  be  compulsory,  just 
as  is  spelling,  arithmetic,  or  any  other  branch  taught  regularly 
at  the  schools.  Some  such  course  is  the  more  needed  when 
we  bear  in  mind  that  the  mass  of  children  in  the  I'ublic 
Schools  do  not  have  the  preliminary  training  of  the  Kinder- 
garten, and  will  not  have  the  opportunity  of  entering 
technical  or  special  schools  after  their  course  in  the  Public 
Schools  is  finished.  In  the  language  of  an  earnest  writer, 
"for  them  it  is  evident  that  the  common  school  course 
should  include  such  manual  training  as  will  supplement  ed- 
ucation of  the  brain  by  education  of  the  hand,  a  natural 
development  of  such  culture  of  the  hand  and  eye  as  will 
lead  to  the  best  preparation  of  any  form  of  skilled  manual 
labor.  Each  step  from  the  first  should  be  educational,  and, 
moreover,  should  be  taken  in  its  proper  relation  to  those 
which  have  preceded,  and  to  those  which  are  to  follow. 
In  the  second  place,  the  idea  oi  construction  must  be  wholly 
ignored,  while  that  of  instruction  takes  its  place.  In  the 
third  place,  the  class  system  should  be  introduced,  whereby 
one  expert  or  teacher  is  enabled  to  impart  his  instruction  to 
many  at  the  same  time.  Lastly,  the  object  sought  is  not 
so  much  the  power  to  do  this  or  that  specific  thing,  as  the 
/ni'/z/rr/ hand  and  eye,  wdiich  shall  give  to  their  possessors, 
the  power  t,o  do  anything  within  their  capabilities. 

The  change  from  mental  to  purely  industrial  application 
during  school  hours  affords  healthful  recreation  to  children, 
without  retarding  the  progress  or  diminishing  the  amount  of 
necessary  school  work.  The  training  of  hand  and  eye  to 
precision  in  doing  things  which  children  can  understand  and 
can  see  the  immediate  application  of  is  legitimate  school 
work,  and  a  long  stride  towards  the  object  for  which  all 
strive  in  teaching  writing  and  drawing. 

There  is,  as  w*e  all  know,  a  constantly  increasing  demand 


6  J/iiyor  Coiirfi'iiny's  Anintti/  Rii-iii^-. 

for  results  of  greater  commercial  and  industrial  \'alnc  from 
our  educational  system  ;  and  in  the  course  of  manual  in- 
struction, we  have  just  what  is  necessary  to  meet  this  want. 
These  exercises  can  be  introduced  not  only  without  ilctri- 
ment  to  intellectual  advancement,  but  as  a  \aluable  auxiliar\- 
to  ment.d  [>rogress.  It  is  not  proposetl  to  turn  out  reaily 
made  carpenters,  brick-layers  or  engineers  from  the  comnu>n 
schools,  as  I  have  alread\'  stated,  but  to  teach  certain  fun- 
damental (tperations  which  ma\-  be  considcretl  the  basis  of 
every  trade.  It  is  agreed  that  the  practice  ofa  few  lundamcn- 
t.il  meclianical  motions  is  of  \ital  importance  in  securing 
manual  dexterity.  By  special  g\mnastic  exercises,  or  other- 
wise,  these  fundamental  motions  should  be  practiced  regu- 
larly and  daily  in  the  Public  Schools:  first,  because  of  their 
\alue  as  a  means  of  ph\'sical  development ;  second;  because 
of  their  wage-earning  value  in  after  life;  and  tliinl,  because 
no  other  place  affords  the  f.icilities  of  the  school-r(^om  for 
such  regular  and  s)-stematic  practice. 

The  conservative  school-master  may  object  that  this  is  an 
innovation;  that  it  will  upset  his  admirably  arranged  plan 
t)f  studies,  and,  moreover,  will  make  such  an  inroad  upon  the 
school  hours,  as  to  render  such  a  notion  altogether  impractica- 
ble. Such  objections  come  uj)  with  certainty  in  ever\-  change 
of  the  traditional  curriculum.  W'c  ma\'  be  sure,  that  when 
it  was  first  proposed  to  make  geography  one  of  the  regular 
free  .school  studies,  there  were  okl  masters  who  protested 
vehemently  that  it  was  unncccssar\-.  1  do  not  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  the  fiinc  can  be  found  in  a  wcll-digesteil  plan  of 
studies,  for  this  and  any  other  instruction  that  should  be 
introduced  into  our  schools,  and  it  is  maintained  b\' ad\-ocates 
of  this  reform,  that  the  intellectual  training  derivetl  from 
skillfull)'  directcil  manual  instruction  will  fully  counter- 
balance the  difference  in  the  number  of  stud)-  hours. 

These  are  not  speculations;  they  have  been  reducetl  to 
l)ractice.  '1  he  W'orkingman's  School  of  New  ^'ork  has  in- 
stituted a  course  of  this  instruction,  and  Mr.  l^amberger. 
the  Principal,  presents  the  follow  ing  detailed  statements  of 
the  special  features  of  their  scheme  of  manual  training: 


Eitucation  in  Charleston.  ^ 

'•  111  llic  school  i)ro[)cr,  tlicn,  we  seek  to  bridi^c  over  the 
interval  lying"  between  the  preparatory  Kindergarten  train- 
ing and  the  specialized  instruction  of  the  technical  school, 
utilizing  the  school-age  itself  for  the  development  of  indus- 
trial ability.  This,  however,  is  only  one  characteristic 
feature  of  our  institution.  The  other,  and  the  capital  one, 
is,  that  we  seek  to  combine  industrial  instruction  organically 
with  the  ordinary  branches  of  instruction,  thus  using  it  not 
only  for  the  material  purpose  of  creating  skill,  but  also 
ideally  as  a  factor  of  niind  education.  To  our  kno\vledge, 
such  an  application  of  work  instruction  has  nowhere,  as  yet, 
been  attempted,  either  abroad  or  in  this  countr\'. 

In  practically  attacking  our  problem,  however,  we  were 
com[)ellcd  to  meet  great  difticultics.  The  choice  of  material 
for  the  children's  work  presented  a  first  difficulty. 

The  softest  wood  is  too  hard  for  the  delicate  fingers  of 
children  seven  years  old,  and,  moreover,  requires  the  use  of 
heavy  and  sharp  tools,  such  as  arc  not  willingly  intrusted 
to  little  ones  at  so  tender  an  age.  \Vc  finally  decided  to 
use  clay.  Clay,  after  it  has  been  prepared  in  a  special  way 
for  this  purpose,  is  easy  to  cut  and  manipulate,  does  not 
stick  to  the  tool,  and  is  not  brittle  enough  to  break  and 
crumble.     This  proved  entirely  successful. 

A  complete  series  of  patterns  had  to  be  invented,  which 
might  be  worked  by  young  pupils  out  of  this  material. 
Thirty  such  patterns  have  been  produced,  and  in  them  we 
have  the  system  of  elementary  industrial  exercises,  with 
which  we  begin.  These  patterns  are  described  in  our  illus- 
tratit)ns. 

Let  us  now  look  at  our  little  workmen  at  their  work. 
I)y  means  of  a  simple  arrangement  the  school  desks  are 
converted  into  work-tables.  Every  child  is  supplied  with  a 
set  of  cheap  and  suitable  tools.  The  wol'k-lessons  occur  in 
the  afternoon  on  two  days  of  the  week,  and  last  two  hour^ 
each  time.  The  pupils  are  obliged  to  behave  as  quietly 
during  work  as  in  the  other  school  hours  !  only  just  so  much 
whispering  is  permitted  as  is  necessary  for  the  requesting 
;ind   rendering  of  necessary  assistance.      We  endeavor  to 


j<  Mdi'of    LoKrttiiny's  Aimual  Riviiw. 

"ivc  the  school-room  ihc  .lir  of  a  w  cll-coiidiictcd  worksliop. 
Kach  oupil-workman  has  his  o\\  n  i)l.icc  and  tools,  for  which 
he  is  held  responsible,  so  far  as  possible.  Ail  bei;in  work 
simultaneously,  and  stop  at  the  same  moment. 

We  now  come  to  the  work  itself.  Plates  of  cl.iy  ol 
irre<Tular  outline,  ten  to  fifteen  inches  in  lent^th  and  breadth, 
and  about  one  to  one  and  a  half  inches  thick,  are  i^iven  the 
pupils. 

The  first  lesson   consists   in  the  construction  of  a  square 
from   such  a  plate.     The   children   place   their  rulers  across 
owk:  side   of  it,  and   with   their  pointed   chisels  draw  a  line 
alon^  the  outer  edge.     This   is   not   so  easily  done   as  one 
mii^ht    think.     The   chiUlren   must    practice    the    following 
precautions:  tliL)-  must  ap[)l>-  the  ruler  correctly,  and  hold  it 
firmly  with  the  left  hand,  so  that  it  cannot  sli[)  and  i)roducc 
a  crooked   instead  of  a  straight  line ;  they  must  also  select 
the   proper  tool,  and  hold   it   lightly  and   skillfully,   if  the 
straight  line  is  really  to  be  faultless.     Finall\-,  from  the  out- 
set, they  must  learn  to  estimate  tiie  amount  of  iheir  material, 
and  to  avoid  wastefulness.     To    this    end    the\-   aie    show  n 
how  to   move   the   ruler    toward  the  edge  as  far  as  possible, 
so  that  none  but  useless  pieces,  or,  at  least,  few  others,  may 
fall  awa\'.      When  this  is  done  they  take  up  their  chisels  ami 
smooth  on  the  outside  according  to  rule,  that  is  to  say,  they 
'learn  to  wield   their  tool   after  the    fashion   of   the   master- 
workman,    in    the    manner    in   which   it   most  speedily  and 
accurately    does    its    work.       If   the\-   have   done  this,   the 
cut  will   show  the  retpiiretl   [jcrpentlicular   direction,  an   im- 
possibility,   if   the  work  has  been  performed  incorrectly  <jr 
awkwardly.      F.ach  worker  thereupon  applies  his  ruler  to  the 
section,   and   convinces  himself   that    it    reall\'   is    accurate. 
The  side  is  then  comi)leted. 

W'c  come  to  the  seconil  part  of  the  work:  the  square  is 
api)lied  to  the  plate  of  cla\- ;  the  sccontl  adjacent  side  is 
ruled,  and  then  chiselletl  off  like  the  first.  Then  the 
children  learn  the  use  of  a  new  tool,— the  carpenter's  square  ; 
ihcy  learn  the  signification  of  a  right  angle,  and  the  eye 
soon  grows  so  accustomed  to  this  new  form,  that  it  detects 


I'.ducation  in   Cliarlcston.  ij 

the  slightest  deviation  from  it.  Not  all,  indeed  only  a  few. 
among  the  pupils  are  able  to  do  this  work  correctly  at 
first;  bnt  after  many  trials  and  repeated  corrections  the  lit- 
tle workman  gradually  becomes  clearK^  aware  of  what  is  re- 
cpiired,  and  how  the  squares  of  clay  look  when  thcv  have 
been  marked  off  perfectly.  Now,  proceeding  from  a  given 
point,  equal  portions  are  taken  away  on  either  side.  Here 
the  child  learns  to  know  and  use  the  rule,  and  becomes  ac- 
quainted with  the  simplest  lineal  measure.  The  two  re- 
maining sides  arc  constructed  iii  like  manner  to  the  first 
two,  and  the  scjuare  is  then  so  far  finished. 

We  now  give  the  class  a  number  of  exercises  on  the 
square,  by  means  of  v.'hich,  all  the  properties  of  this  funda- 
mental geometrical  figure  are  rendered  more  and  p.iore 
familiar  to  the  pupils.  Thus,  it  becomes  clear  that  the 
square  has  four  sides  of  ec[ual  length  and  that  when  one  side 
is  known,  the  length  of  the  others  is  at  once  known  also. 
It  is  further  obvious  that  the  square  possesses  four  right 
angles.  Finally,  by  applying  the  carpenter's  square  to  all 
the  sides  of  the  clay  square  successively,  it  is  seen  that  the 
opposite  sides  are  equally  distant  from  each  other  at  all 
points:  hence,  that  they  are  parallel. 

Further  exercises:  the  children  are  told  to  la\-  their 
rulers  diagonally  across  the  squares  and  draw  a  line  upon 
the  clay.  They  measure  this  line,  and  are  asked :  Is  it 
longer  or  shorter  than  any  one  side?  Then  another 
diagonal  line  is  drawn,  and  also  measured.  How  long  is 
this?  we  ask.  Surprised,  and  in  joyous  excitement,  they 
discover  that  the  lines  are  perfectly  equal.  They  are  then 
told  that  tliese  lines  which  they  have  drawn  are  the 
diagonals,  and  shown  that  f/hj  Jiave  tJicinsclvcs  proved  the 
diagonal  lines  in  a  square  to  be  equal  to  each  other.  This  was 
not  taught  them;  they  have  found  it  out  for  themselves, 
and  will  never  forget  it.  The  little  ones  quickly  discover 
that  onl}^  two  diagonals  can  be  drawn  in  one  square,  and 
that  these  intersect  each  other  at  a  certain  point.  They  are 
now  directed  to  measure  again,  and  they  find  that  this  point 
and  no  other  is  equally  distant  from  the   corners,  and  that 

9 


lo  Mijyor  Coiirfi-iitiys  Annual  /\\:/l:j. 

ilic  diagonals  cut  each  other  into  lialvcs.  \W  application 
of  the  carpenter's  square  the\'  now  find  that  aij^ain  there 
are  four  right  angles  about  this  point  (centre i.  The  sides 
of  the  square  arc  likewise  divided  into  halves,  and  the  cen- 
tral points  found.  The  lines  that  connect  the  points  must 
pass  through  the  central  point  of  the  square. 

The  exercises  on  the  square  are  continued  until  the 
larger  number  of  pupils  can  make  one  w  ithout  assistance, 
ami  are  perfect!)'  familiar  with  its  properties  and  relations. 
It  is  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  squares  are  made  in  various 
sizes,  according  to  a  specified  measure,  so  that  the  children 
ma\'  be  thoroughly  exercised  in  lineal  measure. 

The  undersigned,  after  having  taught  the  lowest  class  of 
the  school  during  a  whole  month,  i.  e.  during  sixteen  work 
hours — had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  that  nearly  all  his  pupils 
were  able  to  handle  the  clay  square  according  to  his  expec- 
tations. Although  the  exercises  are  continually  made  more 
difficult,  it  is  yet  plain  that  they  will  be  mastered  in  shorter 
and  shorter  time,  in  proportion  as  the  hands  and  e\'es  of  the 
children  daily  grow  more  practiced,  and  what  has  already 
been  taught,  comes  up  i.i  review  at  nhpost  ever\'  fresh  stage 
of  acquirement. 

Lesson  No.  2  requires  the  construction  of  a  rectangle. 
This  figure  is  first  accurately  described  and  contrasted  with 
the  square  already  studied.  The  quickness  and  correctness 
with  which  several  of  the  pupils  immediately  recognized 
the  essential  differences  between  square  and  rectangle  were 
a  great  satisfaction  to  me.  They  noted  that  the  sides  are 
equal  in  pairs  (parallels) ;  that  the  diagonals  are  ecjual  to 
each  other,  but  do  not  intersect  at  right  angles,  &c.,  ^-c. 

New  facts  and  difficulties  arc  successfully  encountered. 
Squares  and  rectangles  occur  in  the  most  \arious  combina- 
tions; these  numbers  arc  especially  adapted  for  exercising 
the  hand.  When  the  drawing  has  been  made  on  the  plate, 
and  by  means  of  the  indicated  aid  lines  cut  awa\-  to  about 
half  the  plate's  thickness,  the  shaded  parts  are  carved  out, 
and  the  figure  then  stands  out  in  relief   See  plate  I  ( i )  and  (2). 

No.  3  introduces  a  new  form,  the  triangle,  wliich  offers  no 


lidiicatioii  in   Charleston.  1 1 

difficulties  to  the  pupil.  Preliniinary  practice  may  be  ob- 
tained by  letting"  the  pupils  divide  a  square  or  rectangle 
diagoflaily  once  or  twice,  b}'  which  means  either  two  or 
four  equal  triangles  will  be  produced. 

No.  4  represents  the  three  forms — square,  rectangle  and 
triangle,  in  pleasing  combination. 

A  new  scries  of  lessons  begins  with  No.  5.  The  pupil 
now  for  the  first  time  makes  use  of  the  compass.  A  regu- 
lar hexagon  is  marked  off  by  means  of  the  radius  on  the 
circumference  of  a  circle,  and  then  inscribed  within  it.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  gain  in  mathematical 
knowledge  which  is  here  obtained,  and  all  the  uscfid  and 
noteworthy  facts  that  may  here  be  shown.  In  the  illustra- 
tion itself  it  is  indicated  how  the  central  point  of  the  scpiarc 
and  rectangle  is  to  be  found. 

It  is  understood  that  the  work  of  the  second  school  }-ear 
shall  begin  with  No.  5.  This  is  followed  by  other  num- 
bers, representing  strictly  mathematical  forms  (6)  and  plate 
II  (7);  a  mathematical  construction,  the  dividing  of  a 
straight  line  into  any  number  of  equal  parts  (8);  and  ob- 
jects of  every-day  life,  in  which  all  the  forms  hitherto 
taught  appear  in  the  most  various  combinations,  (g),  (10), 
(11 )  and  (12). 

When  the  children  reach  the  age  of  nine,  and  have  al- 
ready worked  for  two  years,  it  may  be  assumed  that  they 
possess  enough  strength  and  skill  to  work  in  wood,  and  to 
manage  a  small  saw^  It  may  here  be  remarked  that  this 
has  been  proved  by  the  experience  of  industrial  schools  in 
Germany,  especially  in  Saxe  Weimar. 

Articles  constructed  of  unbarked  wood  make  a  favorable 
impression  when  well  executed,  and  their  fabrication  does 
not  require  an  unusual  degree  of  skill  nor  elaborate  tools. 
As  regards  the  latter,  a  saw,  a  knife,  hammer  and  nails  suf- 
fice ;  for  the  smaller  articles  a  little  glue  is  requisite.  The 
material  may  be  maple,  hawthorn,  hazel  or  similar  woods, 
which  are  cheap,  handy,  easy  of  transportation,  and  can  be 
manipulated  in  the  school  room.  These  woods  are  pro- 
cured in  rods  of  various  length,  and  from  one-quarter  to  one 


12  Afiivor  Coiirtitinys  .In nun/  Riviiu'. 

;nid  a  half  inches  in  dianiclcr.  The  articles  consliuctcd 
are  photograph  frames,  matchboxes,  saving  boxes,  four- 
footed  garden  furniture,  and  a  particular  three-footci  sort. 
When  the  pupil  has  attained  his  eleventh  year,  and  enters 
on  his  fifth  school  year,  he  is  entrusted  with  a  scroll  saw  to 
work  in  wood,  and  later  on,  also,  iu  /.inc.  This  kind  of 
work  is  in  itself  quite  easy,  except  in  its  arti>tic  finish,  but 
ver}-  important.  1 1  ere,  for  the  first  time,  the  pupil  learns 
to  work  after  a  drawing,  which  drawing  must  be  thoroughl)- 
understoC'J.  A  new  feature  consists  also  in  the  opportu- 
nity now  afforded  for  disigning />atfirns,  \\\\\c\\  tends  to  de- 
\  elop  the  imagination.  It  is  true  that  such  work  in  wood 
and  zinc,  when  not  executed  by  proficient  workmen,  alwa\s 
has  a  rough  and  unfinished  look,  the  wood  being  usually 
poorly  cut  out,  and  the  various  parts  inartistically  joined 
together,  since  it  is  rare  that  anyone  is  able,  without  special 
instruction,  to  round  off  and  smooth  the  cut  edges  prop- 
erly. I'or  this  reason  we  propose  to  connect  the  rudiments 
of  wood-carving  with  this  sort  of  work.  The  necessary  im- 
plements for  wood-carving  are  a  scroll-saw,  drill,  gouge  and 
file.  The  wood  and  patterns  are  cheapl}-  procured  ;  of  the 
latter,  only  the  copies  made  by  tlic  pnpils  tlicuisclvcs  are 
used.  The  work  done  in  zinc  is  almost  now,  and  little 
known  as  jet.  It  proves  a  higher  step  in  this  species  of 
work.  The  awl  rei)laces  the  drill,  and  a  foundation  of 
wood  is  used.  Remnants  of  zinc  can  be  bought  up  cheapl}' 
from  tin-ware  dealers.  The  simplest  house  and  kitchen 
utensils  are  manufactured,  such  as  pot  covers,  spoons,  fr\*- 
ing  pans,  strainers,  pots,  salt  cellars,  &c,,  &c. 

The  seventh  school  year  begins  with  instruction  in  the 
large  field  of  carpenter's  work.  The  complete  outfit  of  a 
workshop  is  now  requisite,  and  the  carpenter's  bench  be- 
comes the  pupil's  true  work-table,  while  various  planes, 
drills  and  .saws. constitute  the  necessary  tools.  The  articles 
manufactured  are  at  first  limited  to  the  most  simple  house- 
hold utensils,  but  the  pupils  speedily  advance  to  more  com- 
plicated w.)rk.  When  this  branch  has  been  thoroughly 
pursued  for  a  period  of  two  years,  carving  and  turning  offer 


lidiication  in  Charleston.  1 3 

very  few  difnculties  to  the  worker.  The  preliminaries  liere 
are  always  carpenter's  work,  and  the  free-hand  exercises 
with  the  clay  constitute  an  additional  preparation.  Tiiis 
species  of  work  forms  the  introductory  step  in  the  Russian 
workshops,  and  is  followed  by  instruction  in  turning  and  in 
the  blacksmith's  craft. 

Such  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  industrial  exercises  planned 
for  our  school,  and  of  which  the  earlier  are  already  in  oper- 
ation. The  plan  is  by  no  means  in  so  far  definite  as  not  to 
be  open  to  modifications,  which  our  own  experience,  or  the 
criticism  of  others,  may  suggest ;  it  is  the  provisional  plan 
upon  which  we  propose  to  proceed,  and  the  first  steps  of  it 
at  least  have  already  been  approved  by  experience. 

These  exercises  possess  educational  value  in  many  differ- 
ent ways,  and  may  be  shown,  as  we  have  said  in  the  begin- 
nincr,  to  be  in  close  connection  with  manv  branches  of  in- 
struction,  and  with  the  collective  education  of  the   pupils. 

Instruction  in  drawing  must  of  necessity  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  modelling.  What  is  drawn  here  is  manufactured 
there,  and  vice  versa. 

Further,  the  rudiments  of  geomctr\'  arc  taught  by  means 
of  this  work  far  better  than  with  the  aid  of  mere  diagrams. 
And  a  large  number  of  definitions  and  propositions,  which 
are  commonly  remembered  by  routine,  are,  by  our  method, 
demonstrated  to  the  eye,  and  thus  remain  stamped  on  the 
mind  forever. 

Knowledge  of  arithmetic  is  also  incidentally  acquired. 
The  children  have  to  cipher  practically,  to  add  and  sub- 
tract, to  read  the  figures  on  the  scale,  to  divide  and  multi- 
ply them  in  the  most  various  combinations. 

Even  certain  of  the  facts  of  natural  history  may  be 
taught  in  connection  with  the  work. 

The  children  learn  to  know  the  material  which  they  are 
handling;  they  study  various  kinds  of  wood,  their  proper- 
ties, marks  of  recognition  and  adaptation.  The  teacher 
goes  back  to  the  tree  out  of  which  the  wood  has  come,  and 
explains  the  formation  of  the  annual  rings,  so  easily  per- 
ceptible to  the  children.     They  arc  taught  from  these  how 


i^  J/ttj'or  Coiirtt'ntiys  Anniin/  Rriii^i.'. 

to  tlctcrininc  ///<'  n^t-,  quality  and  I'a/uc'  of  llic  wood.  hOrnis 
of  nature,  also,  arc  actually  copicil  in  wcuxl,  cla\- and  pias- 
ter, whenever  such  imitation  is  i)ossiblc ;  ami  when  it  is 
not.  recourse  is  had  to  drawing. 

In  this  way  wc  endeavor  to  make  work  instruction  con- 
tribute toward  the  general  development  of  the  child.  77/r- 
/mini  is  educated  by  the  mind,  tlic  mind  by  tltc  //and." 

riii:  (I  rv  i  ri'.i.ic  sfiiooi.s— kkpok  r  mi   sri-rkiN  ikmikn  |- 

SIMC^NS 

I  Ion.  /////.  A.  Conrtiiiay  : 

Dkar  Sir— One  year  ago  1  had  the  honor  to  report  fne 
City  Public  Schools.  I  now  take  pleasure  in  saying  that  we 
have  added  a  sixth. 

In  October  last,  when  wc  resumed  after  the  summer  va- 
cation, the  "Crafts"  was  sufficiently  completed  and  equipped 
as  to  be  ready  for  service.  The  name  of  the  building,  as 
will  be  seen,  was  suggested  by  the  following  correspon- 
dence : 

CllAKl.KSTON.  S.  C,  August  15th.  1S81. 
Jmak.^ik— I  passed  through  Friend  Street  to-day.  and 
the  new  school  building  is  progressing  favorablw  At  an 
early  da\'  a  panel  in  the  front  wall  o\er  the  entrance 
should  be  prepared  to  receive  the  inscription.  1  renew 
my  suggestion,  that  it  be  called  the  "William  Crafts 
School,"  to  perpetuate  a  name  early  identified  with  the 
cause  of  public  education  in  South  Carolina,  and  I  do  so, 
that  the  present  generation  may  make  a  public  acknowledg- 
ment for  a  past  service  in  this  great  work,  and  thus  pre- 
serve to  posterity  the  name  of  a  public  benefactor. 

I  would  be  pleased  to  have  your  influential  concurrence. 

Very  respectfully. 

(Signed.)  '      WM.  A.'COURTEKAV, 

Mayor. 
Hon.  C.  G.  Mhmminckk. 

Cliairvian  Board  of  SrJiool  Commissioners. 


Hdiicatioii  ill  Charleston.  \  5 

Cl  rv    Et)AKl)    OF   SciiOUL   CoMMIhSIONEKS,  ] 
Charleston,  S.  C,  October  9th,  i88r.       j 
Hon.  ]Vni.  A.  Conrtctiay : 

Dear  Sir— I  have  the  honor  to  transmit  to  you  the  fol- 
lowing" copy  of  a  resolution  passed  at  a  meeting  of  tlie  Ikiard, 
held  on  the  "th  instant : 

Resolved,  That  in  grateful  memoiy  of  the  efforts  of  the  kto  Hon.  Wm.  Crafts 
in  the  cause  of  Public  Schools  in  South  Carolina,  the  Friend  Street  School  has 
been  named  in  his  honor,  and  that  a  marble  tablet  be  inserted  in  the  front  of 
the  building  bearing  his  name,  and  the  preparation  of  the  said  tablet  be  referred 
to  the  Building  Committee. 

By  order  of  the  Board.  D.   M.  O'DRISCOLL, 

Clerk. 

The  building  is  of  brick,  rough-cast,  three  stories  on  a 
high  basement,  and  contains  three  large  main  room.s,  four- 
teen class-rooms,  office,  teachers'  cloak-room,  besides  a  cloak- 
room for  the  children  on  each  story. 

Constructed  after  the  plan  of  the  Morris  Street  School- 
house,  it  stands  out,  like  the  latter,  by  itself,  commanding 
from  the  upper  floors  a  magnificent  view  of  the  city,  rivers 
and  harbor.  The  situation  is  altogether  desirable — being 
the  site  of  the  old  Friend  Street  School,  destroyed  by  fire — 
open,  air}-,  and  well  ventilated.  Occupying  as  it  does  a 
prominent  position  near  one  main  thoroughfare  in  the  lower 
wards,  this  building  is  an  ornament  to  the  cit\-,  and  well 
deserving  of  notice. 

The  school  opened  fairl)-,  and  has  improved  steadil}-  each 
day  in  numbers.  The  majority  of  the  pupils,  however,  arc 
from  the  "  Bennett  "  and  "  Memminger,"  furnished  from  the 
classes  hitherto  necessarily  crov.'ded   into  these  two  schools. 

The  Memminger  School  having  been  dixxsted  of  its  four 
lower  forms,  has  been  constituted  entirely  a  High  School  for 
Girls,  with  the  addition  of  higher  branches  in  the  divisions, 
such  as  astronomy,  chemistry  and  geometr\'. 

The  Saturday  Normal  School  is  also  held  in  this  building- 
each  alternate  Saturday,  there  being  two  sessions  in  the 
month,  and    is  regularly  attended   by  the   Principals.  Vice- 


1 6  MtiYor  CoiirtiUiiy's  Aiiiiiuil  Kiviiu\ 

Principals  and  the  teachers  of  all  the  scliools.  as  well  as  b\- 
many  of  the  ^'raduates  of  the  '"  .Memminpjer."  Luuler  conduct: 
of  our  efficient  and  experienced  Associate  Principals.  Messrs. 
n.  v.  Archer  and  A.  Doty,  Jr. 

The  Hennett  School  has  also  been  rciieved  of  its  j)rcssiire 
by  five  classes  since  the  opening  of  the  "  Crafts."  In  e;ich 
of  these  schools  has  been  organized  a  Girl>'  (iramniar  De- 
partment, intended  to  serve  as  a  feeder  to  the  Memmingcr 
High  School,  furnishing  each  year  from  the  higher  classes 
l)upils  for  the  lowest  form  of  the  latter. 

The  Meeting  Street  School  is  improving  in  numbers,  and 
bids  fair  to  call  for  more  room  for  expansion.  The  pui)ils 
of  this  school,  as  you  are  doubtless  aware,  are  from  the  ex- 
treme upper  wards,  and  some  from  the  farms  in  the  North- 
ern part  of  the  city.      It  is,  therefore,  the  smallest. 

The  two  colored  schools,  the  Morris  Street  and  Shaw- 
Memorial,  are  still  over-crowded,  but  a  plan  is  in  contem- 
plation which,  when  carried  out.  will  go  far  to  remove  the 
difficult)-,  and  accommodate  a  still  larger  number  of  the 
children  of  our  colored  citizens. 

Might  I  be  pardoned  for  saying  just  here  that  a  Reforma- 
tion School  is  an  institutif)n  much  to  be  desired,  as  it  is 
much  needed  in  our  midst  at  this  time.  Many  of  the  child- 
ren in  the  city  do  not  take  advantage  of  the  opportunities 
offered  them  by  our  City  Public  Schools,  but  gro  v  up  in 
idleness  and  ignorance,  nay,  in  beggary  and  want.  It  is 
distressing  to  sec  a  child  of  tender  years  dogging  the  foot- 
steps of  respectable  citizens  on  the  busy  thoroughfares,  as 
also  to  witness  the  attendance  at  prayer  meetings  held  each 
Sabbath  at  the  Jail,  of  boys  of  twelve  years,  and  upwards. 
These  things  should  not  be  I  These  children  siunild  all  be 
placed  in  wards  of  some  institution  where  reform  is  to  be 
had,  then  regularly  educated.  There  arc  too  many  match- 
boys,  boot-blacks,  self-constituted,  unlicensed,  independent 
errand-boys,  strolling  the  streets;  sufficient  to  fill  one  or 
more  large  graded  schools.  Let  these  be  looked  after  as 
well,  and,  believe  mc,  sir,  many  a  useful  citizen  would  thus 
be  rcclnimcd,  crime  would  be  less  frequent,  and  our  County 
jails  need  no  enlargement. 


Education  in   Charleston.  ly 

Tile  present  status  of  the  schools  is  as  follows: 
NUMHKR     OF    Pl'fll.S     REGISTERKI)     1.\     THE    ClTV    Pl'lil.lC 

Schools  December  3isr,   18S2. 

hENN'KiT  ScuO'jL — Mr.  H.  \\  AicIuT,  I'liucipal: 

Boys ^61 

f^i'l'^ 391—852 

Ckai-js  School  -Mr.  V.  \V.  Clement,  I'l jiici[)al: 

Boys y)i) 

<''i'^ -54—  S('3 

MiiMMiNCEK  Huai  SCHOOL — Miss  A.  R.  Simoiiton,  I'liucipal; 

Girls 3(jC) —  396 

Meetl\(;  Street  School— Mr.  J.  A.  I'inger,  I'rincipal; 

]}oys 151 

Girls 1O4-  315 

MoKRis  Street  School  (Colored) — Mr.  A.  Doty,  Jr.,  Principal: 

Boys.: 537 

Girls 701— 123S 

Sh.wv   Me.moklvl  School  (Colored) — Mr.  Ed.  Carroll,  Trincipal; 

Boys 33'J 

Girls 44'J—  77') 

Gk.\.M)  ToiALs: 

Boys 177^ 

Girls 2355—4143 

Average  Number  Belonging. 

UOVS.  GHiLS.  TOTAXS. 

Bennett  School 45i  39t  842 

Crafts  School 294  250  544 

Memminger  High  School 3^^)  3^9 

Meeting  Street  School 152  "Jt  3i3 

Morris  Street  School 53<)  ''34  )  223 

Shaw  Memorial  School 318  421  ^39 

..     Grand  Totals i754  2296  4"5o 

3 


1 8  Movor  Court ciuiys  Annual  Rcrii-c. 

AvKKAGK    l).\iiN    A  1  ri:M)ANri:. 

DUVS.  i.lklS.         TdTAI.s. 

Bennett  School 4<>3  343  74'> 

Crafts  School 2?^  =-''  4')i 

M  cm  mi  nger  High  School 34'  34' 

Meeting  Street  School « -'7  132  25.) 

Morris  Street  School   4y<>  ^'i 5  1 105 

Shaw  Memorial  School. ...                2S5  377  (122 

Of  these  4,145  childiLii  111  the  >l1i(m)1s,  j,ij()  arc  white 
and  2,017  afj  colored. 

The  nunibcr  of  tcachcr.s  cini)lu>cd  in  the  schools  is 
lOJ,  to  wit :  I  male  Superintendent,  5  male  Principals  of 
Schools,  I  female  Principal  of  School,  3  male  Vice-Principals 
of  Schools,  3  female  Vice-Principals  of  Schools,  4  female 
Principals  of  Departments,  4  female  Vice-Principals  of  De- 
partments, 79  female  teachers,  i  female  teacher  (floatingi, 
I  male  teacher  of  music;  besides  others  holding  certificates 
from  the  Cit\'  Board  of  E.Kamincrs,  or  certificates  of  gradua- 
tion from  tlic  IMemminger  School,  who  ma\-  be  employed 
from  time  to  time,  as  occasion  may  require — when  more  than 
one  of  the  regular  teachers  is  absent  from  sickness,  or  other- 
wise detained. 

As  but  five  of  uur  schools  lia\'e  been  in  .=e.>sion  fur  the 
entire  year,  it  is  not  possible  to  estimate  the  cost  of  the  si.\  ; 
suffice  it  that  the  additional  school  has  not  increased  our 
expenses  proportionally,  since  most  of  the  teachers,  as  well 
as  pupils,  have  been  transferred  from  the  other  schools,  thus 
decreasing  the  cost  of  those  depleted.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  recent  change  in  the  division  of  the  Count)'  will 
afford  us  a  bettor  income  rateably,  and  allow  opjjortunit)- 
for  expansion. 

(3ur  City  Public  Schools  have  attracted  attention  ol  late, 
and  have  been  favorably  commented  upon  by  distinguishcti 
visitors,  educationalists,  and  others.  ])uring  the  past  year 
we  have  been  favored  by  occasional  visitors  from  all  parts 
of  the  .States,  and  much  satisfaction  has  been  expressed. 
nay,  our  school  system  has  been  commended  in  highest 
terms.     S|)c(;ial  intcrgst  has  bcvMi  cvingcd   in   our  colored 


Education,  ill   Cliarhstoii.  19 

schools  by  Foreigners  and   Northern   and  Western  visitors, 
and  all  have  gone  away  pleased. 

If  our  own  citizens,  leading  men  and  fellow-townsmen 
generally,  would  but  favor  us  with  an  occasional  call,  it 
would  inspirit  the  pupils,  teachers,  and  all  connected  with 
the  schools,  and  urge  them  to  redouble  their  efforts. 

Education  is  no  longer  a  Iuxur\',  but  a  necessity.  The 
right  of  suffrage  is  not  yet  restricted  to  the  benefit  of  clergy, 
but  sorely  hampered  by  ignorance  and  superstition.  This 
state  of  affairs  must  necessarily  have  existed  for  a  time,  but 
the  clouds  of  darkness  are  by  degrees  being  dissipated,  and 
light  gleams  in  the  distance.  It  may  take  many,  many 
years  to  unravel  the  problem,  but  be  it  ours  to  lead  the 
willing  by  the  lettered  light  of  instruction  until  the  scales 
shall  have  fallen  from  the  now  purblind  e}'es,  and  the  adult 
voter  walks  unassisted  to  the  ballot-box. 

I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully, 

William'  simons, 

Superintendent  City  Publie  Schools. 
HOI.V  COMMUNION  CHURCH   INSTITUTE. 

The  Holy  Communion  Church  Institute,  founded  by  the 
Rev.  A.  Toomer  Porter,  D.  D.,  in  1867,  continues  its  great  and 
good  work.  (3ver  two  thousand  boys  have  passed  through  its 
halls,  a  large  portion  of  them  filling  their  station  as  respect- 
able citizens.  There  were  last  year  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  inmates  in  the  Institute,  and  one  hundred  and  ten 
day-pupils — one  hundred  and  fifty-three  persons  fed  and 
housed,  inclusive  of  teachers  and  servants.  The  cost  was 
$28,790.56,  of  which  $15,000  was  raised  at  home  in  fees  and 
board,  and  in  subscriptions  and  donations.  There  was  a 
back  debt  of  $5,000,  which  has  all  been  paid,  making  nearly 
$19,000  as  the  generous  offering  to  this  enterprise  by  our 
fellow-citizens,  at  the  North,  and  from  friends  in  England. 
The  school  is  larger  this  year,  and  offers  greater  facilities 
than  ever  before.  It  opened  in  October,  1882,  AvhoUy  free 
of  debt.     It  has  a  department  of  elocution  and  mechanical 


?0  }fnvor  Cotirttnoy's  Annua/  Rrrit"L'. 

^i\^\\l\\'^,  oi  ^iciK»i;rapliy  and  telegraph)-.  The  whole  school 
i>^  luider  a  principal  and  some  seventeen  teachers.  Thoiigh 
a  private  work,  it  has  become  a  public  necessity,  and  needs 
nil  the  aid  that  can  be  i^nven.  i)//(/  uiin'/s  n!/  t/mt  if  rririrrs. 

<  ENTRAL  CATllol.IC  sniOOI.-FOR  1?0VS 

Number  of  pupils  registered  376;  number  of  teachers 
(tn.'t' ■•■  -  •  -'^st  of  maintenance  per  month  S330. 

-txltTV   SlRELl    S('llOOI.-K()R   r.IKl.S. 

Number  of  pupils  registered  280;  number  oi  teachers 
(remale)  6;  cost  of  maintenance  per  month  S240. 

ST.   I'KTKR'.s  SCIKJOI,— FOR  (OI.dRKD  ill  1 1.1  •RKN. 

Number  of  pupils  registered  no;  nunibcr  of  teachers  3  ; 
cost  of  maintenance  per  month  $80. 

Tulal  number  of  pupils  766;  total  cost  of  maintenance 
jjer  month  §650;  making  an  annual  c<^st  of  $6,500  for  ten 
months. 

rut  WAI.LIXGFORD  ACADE.MV  (COLOREt)). 

Organized  1S65;  Rev.  Thos.  A.  Grove,  Principal.  This 
school  is  kept  open  nine  months  in  the  year,  at  an  annual 
cost  of  §3,000.  The  teaching  force  consists  of  a  principal 
and  si.\  teachers,  two  of  whom  are  graduates  of  the  institu- 
tion; three  of  the  others  are  from  the  Northern  States. 
The  enrolment  during  the  pa.st  year  was  612  pupils — males 
285,  females  327  ;  total  612.  Average  attendance  seventy- 
nine  per  cent. 

rilF,   .WKRV   NORMAL  INSTi'lTl  E  (COLORED). 

I'ur  the  past  year  I  note  good  progress  made  at  this  In- 
stitute, of  which  Mr.  A.  W.  Farnham  is  now  the  very 
acceptable  principal.  Since  the  issue  of  the  last  Year  Book, 
the  course  of  study  has  been  so  modified  and  extended  that 
it  coincides  with  the  average  normal  and  preparatory 
Kchools.     The  course  now  includes  French  and  German,  as 


Juiucnfi'oii  ill  CIkvIcsIoh:  2\ 

well  as  Latin  and  Greek.  To  the  department  of  natural 
science  have  been  added  chemistrx',  niineralo^)-,  gcolog}', 
zoology  and  astrononn'.  There  has  alread}-  been  introduced 
natural  theology  and  evidences  of  Christianity.  A  class  of 
tuent}'  are  showing  marked  efficiency  in  stenograph}'. 
Vocal  and  instrumental  music  arc  receiving  more  than  usual 
attention,  the  teacher  for  that  department  giving  her  whole 
time  to  it.  Tn  the  normal  department  special  attention  is 
being  given  to  methods  of  teaching,  school  economy,  and 
school  law,  especially  the  school  law  of  South  Carolina. 
Designing  has  been  introduced  into  the  higher  classes; 
needle-work  and  sewing  into  the  lower  classes ;  and  the 
Kindergarten  into  the  primary  classes.  All  normal  and  pre- 
paratory students  are  required  to  take  systematic  pliysical 
exercise  with  apparatus.  i\  reading  room  has  been  opened. 
C^ne  hundred  and  fifteen  volumes  have  been  added  to  the 
library.  A  course  of  lectures  is  being  given.  The  attend- 
ance of  pupils  was  never  more  regular  and  punctual.  The 
Institute  has  three  hundred  and  fifty  pupils,  under  the  care 
of  eleven  teachers.  The  tuition  of  language  pupils  has 
been  raised  to  two  dollars  a  month  ;  of  English  pupils,  one 
dollar  and  fifty  cents. 

rUBLIC  SCHOOLS  IN  SOUTH  CAROI.TNA. 

The  following  information  of  the  Public  School  work  in 
this  State,  continues  to  1882,  inclusive,  the  record  in  pre- 
vious Year  Books,  and  ^s  copied  from  the  last  annual  re- 
port of  the  State  Superintendent  of  Education  : 

"  NuMTiER   or  SrnooT.s. 

1876-77    • 2,483 

1877-7S ->022 

1878-79 ....2,901 

1879-80 2,073 

i38o-8i 3.057 

1881-82 3-^  ^'^3 


Increase  since  1S76-77. 


TOO 


,1A/riv  Cflitrtt-nny's  Annuo/  R(-:uw. 
rKAclltKS     l.MI'l  ON  II.. 

is;<«  77 —While 1.7^:' 

(  Olnrccl r4  ) 

Total 2/'74 

1877-7^— While 2,cK)i 

(  ijrtrcil I  .r2() 

Total 3,:i7 

T^-?   -(i— While j.oc)!) 

<".>l(>reil I,'i7''i 

Total 3.1^(1 

lS7<)-.so— While 2,04^ 

Colored 1,123 

Total 3.1 71 

lS8o->i— Wliite 2,o2r. 

Colore<l 1 .223 

Total 3,240 

I'i'^i-'^?— Wiiite 2,126 

Colored I,2S7 

Total 3.4 1 3 

Increase  since  1876-77 73') 

StiKioi,  Arri-XDAM  1 . 

1--0   --— Wliite 4''. 4-44 

I  "MJoied    55,^52 

Total 102,30') 

1S77-7S— While 54,1'^ 

("olorcd C)2, 1 2 1 

Total T  I''), 230 

Increase '3.^43 

1 S7S  -70— White 53.3f>S 

Colored '^M.'^J? 

Total 122,463 

liicr  anc   6,224 


Ediuaiiou  in   Chnrhstou.  23 

1879-Sc— White ,.    f)i,2iij 

Colored 72.853 

Total 134,072 

I lu  lease 11,609 

1S80-SX — Wiiitc 61,339 

Culoix'tl 72,1 1'j 

'I'otal 133,458  ,: 

1  )ecit'a>c ; 6.1 4 

18S1-82  — White f'5,399      " 

('olorcd 80,573 

Total 145.974  ''■ 

I  iicrease .  12,516 

Increase  si  nee    1876-77 -^I^-STS 

School  Fund. 

1S76-77 Si89,325.S,) 

1B77-78 316,197.10 

1S78-7') 33i.049-9'-> 

1879-80   415,108.94 

j88o-Si 452,965.44  /'. 

Length  ui-  Skssion, 

1876-77 3      months, 

1S77-7S 3  ','i«  " 

1878-79   3>3       '> 

1879-80 3!'2 

i83o-Si 3'/^      " 

1881-82 •  4 

<7.  This  i.s  the  lari^cst  luimbor  of  pupil.s  c\cr  cnrollcel  in 
the  I'ublic  .Schools  of  this  State  in  one  )'ear. 

/'.  This  amount  is  the  largest  ever  reported  in  one  \-ear 
lor  Public  Schools  in  South  Carolina.  It  is  believetl  that 
the  school  fund  for  the  fiscal  year  1881-82  was  larger  than 
the  amount  here  reported  for  i88o-8r.  Fidl  rei)orts  of  the 
school  taxes  collected  during  the  fiscal  year  1881-82  have 
not  yet  been  made  to  the  Comptroller-General, 


2^  J/t7yor-  Cotir/i/idr's  Annihil  Rrviiti'. 

ll  will  be  seen  that  there  lias  been  a  niaikecl  ineiea>e  in 
ihc  number  of  schools,  in  the  number  of  teachers  eniplDved. 
in  the  school  attendance  and  in  the  school  fund. 

At  the  close  of  the  fiscal  year  1876  77,  reports  made  to 
this  office  showed  that  the  amount  of  past  due  and  unpaid 
school  claims  against  the  school  fund  of  the  several  Counties 
of  the  State  was  $209,940.66;  but  subsecpient  investij^ations 
have  shown  that  in  several  Counties  the  indebtedness  was 
puich  larger  than  the  amount  then  reported. 

In  twenty-seven  Counties,  under  the  authorit)-  of  .Acts  oi 
the  Legislature,  the  proceeds  of  the  poll  tax.  in  whole  or  in 
part,  have  been  used  to  pay  these  claims.  In  those  Counties 
in  which  tlie  proceeds  of  the  poll  ta.x  ha\e  been  thus  usetl 
the  school  session  has  been  necessaril}'  diminished. 

Tile  following  is  a  statement  of  the  amount  of  the  pa.>it 
due  school  claims  still  unpaid  : 

tliailcslun >>  13, 692.78 

Clarendon 3,01 1 .44 

ILinipton 2,018.30 

K  crshaw 3 ,426 .  u2 

Oconee 2,590. 75 

Orangeburg S, 020. 70 

Kicliland. ...    1,815  .oS 

'l""'-'l =r34.575-'3" 

\  i>ir  ( ll    1111;  Ki;\ .  A.  I'.  \\.\\(\  1).  i>. 

In  the  spring  of  1882.  this  distinguished  tlixine  visiteil 
.South  Carolina  in  the  interests  of  education,  and  was  invi- 
ted to  come  to  Charleston  as  the  guest  of  the  cit\-.  This 
he  did,  spending  two  weeks  here  visiting  our  schools,  public 
and  private,  and  has  been  pleased  since  to  speak  of  our  eilu- 
cati.ona.1  establishments  in  i)lcasant  terms.  At  the  public 
reception  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  he  was  welcomed  by  a 
crowded  and  influential  audience,  and  spoke  most  eloquent- 
ly in  behalf  of  renewed  energy  in  educational  work.  Upon 
leaving  C"harleston.  the  City  Council  took  the  following  ac- 
tion, l)v  a  unaninn)u>  vt)le  : 


I'.diicatioii  ill   CJiarlcston.  25 

Tlic  (."uiiuuittcc  appoiiitctl  uiulcr  resolution  (A  CouiR-il  to 
prcoarc  suitdblc  resolutions  to  be  sent  to  the  Rev.  A.  I). 
Mayo,  1).  ]).,  expressive  of  tlie  thanks  of  our  citizens  for 
his  recent  visit  to  our  city  in  the  interest  of  public  educa- 
tion, rcspectfull}'  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following- 
resolutions  : 

Rcsolrcil,  'J'IkU  llio  C'ily  Council  hcrcwilh  cxpros  llicir  >iuccrc  s;rntilicati')M 
at  the  recent  vi.sit  of  tlic  Kcv.  A.  1).  Mayo,  1).  I).,  to  our  cilv. 

Rt'soh'iJ,  Tliat  \vc  licrewilh  rcluin  to  the.  Rev.  A.  I).  Mayo,  D.  1).,  our 
hearty  thanks  for  the  able,  eK)i[ucut  and  instructive  aiUlresi>  delivered  liy  liini 
in  the  Academy  ol'  Music,  and  tlie  addresses  delivered  hy  liini  in  tlie  several 
educational  institutions  of  our  city. 

Resolved,  That  we  regard  with  high  appiceiatiun  the  zeal  and  interest  mani- 
fested by  the  Rev.  A.  D.  Mayo,  I).  JJ.,  in  the  cause  of  public  education,  and 
cherish  the  liope  that  his  varied  and  earnest  efforts  in  this  direction  may  be 
rewarded  with  deserving  success. 

G.  W.  DINGLE, 
A.  JOHNSON, 

Coiniiiiltcc. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION. 

'IllK    IIIOH   SCIIUOL— COLLEGE— SOUTH  CAROLINA  MildlWRV 

ACADEMY. 

As  a  proper  introduction  to  this  portion  of  my  educational 
report  for  the  year,  I  present  a  copy  of  the  bill  passed  at 
the  last  session  of  the  General  Assembly,  the  most  imi)or- 
tant  feature  of  which  is  the  generous  provision  for  affordini^- 
the  advantages  of  higher  education,  free,  to  the  meritorious 
boys  from  the  Public  Schools,  the  "  Central  "  and  "German  " 
Academies.  By  this  legislation  it  is  hoped  that  some  boy.s 
from  these  schools  will  be  induced  annually  to  undertake 
the  High  School  and  College  course,  or  seek  appointments 
in  the  Citadel  Academy. 

AN  ACT  TO  Reorg.wi/e  the  School  Board  oe  the 
Clfv  oe  Charleston,  and  to  give  Lr  the  Power 

OE    PrOVHJIXG    a    LHil'.RAf.     EDUCATION     LOR     MERI- 
TORIOUS Pupils. 

SiccTioN    I.     He  it  ciiaclcd  by  the  Seiiale  and  House  of  KepresenUUives  of  lite 
-t 


26  Mayor  Cotirtcntiv s  Auinuil  Rivitw. 

St .!;  .  '■"  .V  .'/.'*  Carolina,  now  uift  ana  sit  tin.;  in  Uyinni/  .lss,/>i/>/y,  at/,/  l>v  ihf 
arm'.  Thai  the  City  of  Cliarlcslou  is  hereby  ilividei.1  into  six 
-:  'I'lie  I'irNl  District  to  compri!>e  \Varil->  one  (i)  aiul  two  (2); 
'.  Dislrict  to  comprise  WarJb  three  (3)  anil  foiir(^l,  the  'I'liird  District 
i.i  i.Mii|i.i>e  Wanis  five  (5)  ami  six  (6);  the  Fourth  District  to  comprise  Wards 
>evcii  (7)  and  eiyht  (8);  the  1-iflh  District  to  comprise  Wards  nine  (9)  and  ten 
(lo);  the  Sixth  District  to  comprise  Wards  eleven  (ii)  and  twelve  (12)  of  said 
ciiv.  At  everv  {general  municipal  election  in  the  City  of  Charleston  there  shall 
i>c  ciccteil  by  the  legal  voters  of  each  of  the  said  School  Districts,  respectively, 
one  School  Commissioner,  and  the  six  Scliool  Commissioners  so  elected,  together 
with  the  two  School  Commissioners  to  be  appointed  for  the  same  tcrn>  by  the 
tiovcrnor,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  Hoard  of  Trustees  of  the  Iligli 
School  of  Charleston,  and  two  School  Commissioners  to  be  appointed  for  tlic 
same  term  by  the  Governor,  upon  the  recommendation  of  *.lie  Hoard  of  Trustees 
of  the  College  of  Charleston,  shall  constitute  the  School  Hoard  for  the  City  of 
Charleston,  and  shall  be  invested  with  all  the  powers  and  |)crform  all  the  dutie», 
and  in  every  respect  be  governed  by  tlie  laws  now  existing  respecting  the 
Sjhool  Hoard  of  the  City  of  Charleston,  as  heretofore  constituted. 

SEf.  2.  It  shall  be  the  duly  of  said  School  Hoard,  and  they  arc  iiereby 
authorized  and  empowered,  to  select  from  the  I'ublic  Schools,  the  School  of  the 
German  School  Association  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  and  the  Central 
School,  by  competitive  examination,  such  meritorious  boys  as  may  desire  ii> 
secure  the  privilege  of  a  more  liberal  education,  and  are  otherwise  unable  to 
secure  the  same,  and  recommend  them  to  be  received  into  the  High  School  iti 
Charleston,  under  such  rules  and  regulations  as  may  Ijc  prescrilied  by  the  said 
Hoard  of  Trustees  of  the  High  School  of  Charleston  ;  an<l  the  said  School  Hoard 
is,  further  authorized  and  empowered  to  pay  the  regular  annual  tuition  fees,  and 
no  more,  for  such  pupils  so  recommended  as  may  be  received  into  said  High 
School,  and  maintain  such  a  standard  as  is  required  therein,  which  said  tuition 
lees  shall  be  paid  out  of  the  fund  to  which  the  Charleston  School  District  is 
I'litilled  out  of  the  amount  raised  by  the  C'ily  of  Charleston,  :ind  nol  oul  i^if  the 
constitutional  two  mill  tax. 

Skc.  3.  The  pupils  so  admitted  into  the  High  School  of  Ciiarioton,  as  shall, 
upon  graduation,  be  recommended  by  the  .Sciiool  Hoard  for  the  City  of  Charles- 
ton for  proficiency  in  said  High  School,  shall  be  entitled  to  the  free  honorary 
scholarships  in  the  College  of  Charleston,  providetl  for  such  purp(jse  by  the 
Hoard  of  Trustees  of  the  College  of  Charleston,  sudi  scholarshiii  to  lie  held 
umler  the  rules  and  regulations  prescribed  by  the  Tiiistees  of  the  (■uliegc  of 
(  harleston. 

Skc.  4.  For  the  further  pnnnoiion  of  the  liberal  education  of  the  youth  of 
the  Slate,  the  said  School  Board  is  hereby  authorized  and  em|)cwered  to  ap- 
jHiint  the  beneficiaries  of  the  scholarships  to  which  the  County  of  Charleston 
Hi.y  be  entitled  in  either  branch  of  the  Stale  Inivcisiiy. 

"i  •  .  5.  The  present  School  Hoard  of  the  City  of  Charleston  shall  coniiuue 
to  exercise  the  same  powers  and  iierform  the  same  duties  heretofore  exercised 
and  performed  by  them,  until  (he  Hoard  herein  provi(led  for  shall  be  eleclcd 
and  organized. 


lidiicaiioii  ill   Cliarlcslon.  2/ 

SivC.  C).  All  Ai'ls  anil  \y.w\~.  \^\  Acts  inc(in^i>lciU  willi  llii^  Acl  arc  lit-ix-hy 
repealed. 

ApiMoved  the  twenly  liiM  ila\   nl   I  KtchiIkm  ,  A.  1 ).  1SS2. 

I'lil':  STATE  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA,? 

'Ol'I'HK     dl'    Sr.CKKTARV    OF    SlATR.         ) 

I,  Iamc>  N.  I.ip^coml),  Secrelaiv  of  Stale,  do  licicliy  cevlih-  llial  llie  fiirep;i>inij 
is  n  true  copy  (if  an  Act  now  on    file  in  tins  office. 

Witness  my  hand  and  the  ^leat  seal  of  tlie  .Slate,  at  (!olund)ia,  this  22d  day 
of  January,  A.  I ).  i^S;,. 

|SKAI,.|  jAS    N.    l.irsCOMi;,    Scoclary  of  Slal,\ 

'ITIK    Ill(;il   SCIIOi  )[,— I'KINCIl'Al,   niiillLE'S    RKl'ORT. 

Ilicii  Sciiooi.  OF  Charlkstox,  .S.  C,  ) 
Januaiy    iStli.   1883.       j 
To  the  President  and  Members  of  tJie   Innird  of   Trustees  of 
ilic  High  Sehoo/  : 

GFNTr,E.MEN — In  1880,  when  the  present  I^oard  of  Trus- 
tccs  was  organized,  tlie  High  School  Avas  just  emerging 
from  a  protracted  period  of  trial.  Onl}'  those  who  were  ac- 
tively engaged  in  managing  its  interests  during  the  preced- 
ing decade  can  have  any  just  conception  of  the  obstacles 
through  which  it  had  forced  its  way.  With  a  limited  in- 
come, with  an  inadequate  corps  of  teachers,  with  social  ques- 
tions threatening  to  precipitate  such  a  calamity  as  befel 
the  State  University;  with  these  and  other  difficulties  be- 
setting it,  it  is  strange  that  the  school  survived;  it  is  still 
more  straiige  tliat  it  should  have  grown  and  gradually 
worked  its  way  to  a  position  of  prominence   and   efficiency. 

The  promise  for  the  future,  which  the  Board  saw  in  the 
school,  led  them  to  devise  such  plans  and  make  such  changes 
as  v.'ould,  in  their  judgment,  most  surely  develop  its  possi- 
bilities of  usefulness.  Measures  which,  had  been  previously 
impracticable  were  now  apparently  feasible,  and  tlie  time 
seemed  propitious  for  the  establishment  of  the  school  upon 
a  permanent  basis. 

The  principal  changes  embodied  in  the  new  organlzatinn 
are  : 


28  Mtiror  Coil r tend ys  Aiiuual  /ut/Vti'. 

I.     Makiiij^  the  study  i»f  L:Uin  coinjnilsor\-. 

?.  The  assignment  of  a  dcpaitmont,  instead  of  a  class, 
to  each  teacher. 

3.  The  adoption  of  a  rule  requiiinijj  the  ]Hipils  to  ni.iin- 
tain  a  fixed  standard  in  recitations. 

While  the  first  of  these  measures  was  under  consideration. 
fears  were  entertained  by  sonic  that  the  patronage  of  the 
school  might  be  seriously  affected.  These  apprehensions,  1 
am  glad  to  be  able  to  report,  have  proved  groundless.  The 
advantages  in  other  respects  which  the  school  offered  were 
so  evident,  that  those  who  had  bjcn  i)rejudiced  against 
classical  culture  were  willing  to  surrender  the  option  that 
had  formerly  been  allowed.  I  think  the  marked  mental 
development,  wliich  has  in  most  instances  resulted  from  the 
new  course  of  stud)',  has  satisfied  objectors  that  the  change 
had  been  well  considered.  In  a  few  years  I  hope  it  will  not 
be  necessary  in  this  community  to  apologize  for  our  com- 
pulsory Latin  course.  The  superior  training  of  our  gradu- 
ates and  their  thorough  preparation  for  life's  earnest  wcuk 
will  be  an  argument,  the  force  of  which  cannot  but  be 
conceded. 

The  objection  to  classical  culture  rc^ts  ui)on  liie  assump- 
tion that  it  is  not  practical;  an  assumption  which  although 
not  uncommon  is  nevertheless  incorrect.  There  is  no  issue 
between  classical  education  and  that  which  is  j^ractical. 
The  only  education  worthy  of  any  serious  advocacy  is  the 
practical — that  which  is  adapted  to  the  condition  of  its  sub- 
jects, and  which  will  prepare  them  for  the  real  work  which 
life  will  demand  of  them.  Education  is  in  fact  life  begun. 
It  is  the  stimulating  and  directing  of  mental  processes 
which  are  to  continue  and  develop  into  habits.  The  in- 
formation a  boy  gains  at  school  is  of  course  important. 
I'-very  valuable  fact  acquired  is  a  valuable  possession.  But 
what  arc  facts  to  one  who  is  unable  to  appreciate  them,  who 
cannot  make  judicious  use  of  them,  who  is  simply  their 
passive  custodian  ?  Besides,  in  the  few  \-ears  spent  at  school, 
it  is  after  all  only  possible  to   store  up  a  \ery   limited   num- 


lidiicatioii  ill   Chariest  on.  29 

1ier  of  facts;  and  if  the  accjuisition  of  knowlcd^rc  is  all  that 
education  aims  at,  even  the  most  cultured  would  lca\-e  the; 
school-house  with  a  \-er\'  mcaf^Te  equipment. 

To  teach  a  boy  how  to  think — this  is  the  higher  purpose 
of  education,  and  that  education  is  most  practical  wiiich 
most  effectively  accomplishes  this.  The  question  to  be  con- 
sidered in  arrangino-  the  curriculum  of  a  school  is  not  so 
much  what  is  in  itself  important,  as  what  in  its  elTects  upon 
the  mind  produces  important  results.  Now  it  can  hardl)- 
be  disputed,  that  no  educational  system  demands  and  elicits 
so  much  thinking  as  that  into  wliich  is  incorporated  the 
study  of  Latin  and  Greek.  Without  alluding  toother  ad- 
vantages, it  may  be  said  that  the  faithful  student  of  these 
languages  must  subject  his  mind  to  such  exercise  as  w  ill  of 
necessity  develop,  strengthen,  mature  it.  My  own  observa- 
tion leads  me  to  this  assertion  :  Given  two  equally  studious 
boN's  of  equal  age  and  equal  capacity;  let  one  pursue  what 
is  usually  known  as  the  English  course,  and  let  the  other 
be  trained  under  the  classical  system.  At  the  expiration  of 
four  or  five  )'cars  the  classical  student  will,  in  mental 
power — power  to  think,  to  reason  logically,  to  give  correct 
and  elegant  expression  to  his  thoughts  and  his  conclusions — • 
be  found  far  in  advance  of  the  other.  In  this  assertion  I  am 
only  stating  what  prominent  educators  have  long  observed., 
and  have  presented  again  and  again  as  their  conviction. 
Now,  in  view  of  the  results  of  such  a  test,  insteatl  of  ob- 
jecting that  the  classical  education  is  not  practical,  ought  it 
not  rather  to  be  affirmed  that  it  is  the  most  practical  ? 

The  second  change  made  by  the  Board,  viz:  the  assign- 
ment of  departments  instead  of  classes  to  the  teachers  of 
the  school,  has  also  in  its  general  results  proved  judicious. 
Each  teacher,  concentrating  his  energies  upon  kindred  sub- 
jects, has  been  able  to  give  his  pupils  better  and  more  help- 
ful instruction.  The  best  results  have,  however,  been 
reached  in  the  upper  classes.  With  the  younger  pupils  the 
plan  has  this  disadvantage — they  are  not  able  to  rcadil\- 
adapt  themselves  to  the  methods  and  the  characteristics 
of  their    several   teachers;    and   the  impression  which  one 


30  M<7j\^r  Cour/innr's  Aiiintnl  Rex  it  w. 

Iciclicr,  constatitl)"  in  charge  of  them,  mii^ht  make,  is  not  so 
ucll  made  b)'  the  four  or  five  teachers,  to  whom  they  recite. 
and  who  by  turns  arc  to  control  them.  In  the  Boston  Latin 
High  School  the  lower  classes  have  each  of  them  their  own 
class  teacher,  while  in  the  upper  classes  the  same  \A\\w  is  in 
operation  as  that  which  has  been  atlopteil  here. 

The  rule  requiring,  under  jienaity  of  assignment  to  a 
lower  class,  or  of  exclusion  from  the  school,  that  pupils 
should  in  each  department  m.iintain  an  averacje  of  at  least 
fifty  per  cent.,  has  had  a  salutary  effect  upon  those  inclined 
to  habitual  indolence.  Care  has  been  taken  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  this  rule  to  a\'oid  doin£,f  injustice  to  such  as,  even 
with  jiropcr  diligence,  ^\•ere  for  a  time  unable  to  make  tin- 
required  average.  I  confess  to  a  deciiled  ])artialit\-  for  the 
dull  boy  who  is  not  lacking  in  industry,  and  I  think  the 
best  work  of  a  school  is  that  w  hich  is  ilirectcd  to  such  cases. 
Several  of  our  pupils,  now  quite  promising,  have  been  at 
times,  from  no  fault  of  theirs,  unequal  to  the  tasks  assigned 
to  their  classes;  and  had  they  been  dealt  with  har-^hi\-,  the}- 
would  have  given  up  in  despa-r  the  faithful  struggle  the}- 
were  making.  Under  the  operations  of  the  rule,  a  few  ha\e 
found  their  proi)er  place  in  lower  classes,  while  some  have 
withdrawn  from  the  school.  The  number  of  boys  who  failed 
to  maintain  the  required  standard  during  the  past  quarter 
was  very  small,  and  I  think  it  likely  that  before  the  time 
allowed  them  shall  have  expired  most  of  these  will  have 
attained  the  prescribed  percentage. 

The  removal  of  the  school  from  Societ\-  Street  to  the 
"King  Mansion"  and  grounds,  purchased  at  the  suggestion 
of  the  Ma\-or,  and  with  the  readx'  co-operation  of  the  Cit\' 
Council,  was  a  \'ery  wise  step.  1  he  adtlitional  rooms  at  our 
command  have  been  Anind  a  great  convenience,  and  while, 
of  course,  a  building,  not  originalK'  constructed  for  school 
purposes,  could  scared)-  be  expected  to  meet  al!  our  wants. 
yet  with  the  changes  made,  it  has  been  found  a  great  im- 
provement upon  the  building  formerly  occupied.  The 
classes  have  been  much  more  comfortable  during  recitation 
hours,  and  the  boys  have  been  the  better  prepared  for  their 


luiiiciUioii  ill   Charleston,  31 

iiicntcil  worl<  fr()in  cnjoyiiiL;'  fdcilitirs  for  open  air  exercise 
t)n  an  ample  play-grouiul. 

I'he  erection  of  a  ijj^'nmasiuni,  construelecl  and  f(iui])pe(l 
in  accordance  with  the  most  ad\'anced  ideas,  and  the  a[). 
pointmcnt  of  an  accompHshed  teacher  of  L;ymnastics,  have 
also  contributed  hirgely  to  the  efficiency  of  the  schooh  In 
my  visit  the  past  summer  to  several  of  the  leading"  schools 
in  New  Kngland,  I  saw  no  arrangements  for  physical  train- 
ing which  would  compare  with  those  provided  for  the 
pujnls  of  the  Charleston  High  School.  I  can  speak  with 
great  satisfaction  tjf  the  results  already  reached  by  I'rofcssor 
Reinhard,  in  the  development  of  his  systematic  course.  All 
of  the  boys  ha\-e  improved,  and  some  who  were  in  delicate 
health  are  becoming  strong  and  robust. 

At  the  opening  of  the  school  in  April  last,  p.iany  of  the 
ap[)licants  being  unable  from  inadequate  preparation  to 
enter  the  fourth  i  lowest)  class,  it  was  deemed  expedient  by 
the  Hoard  of  Trustees  to  organize  a  primary  department. 
This  department  soon  had  upon  its  roll  the  names  of 
twenty-five  boys,  and  now  nu.mbers  more  than  fifty.  It  is 
gratifying  to  be  able  to  state  that  a  majority  of  these  give 
more  th.m  ordinary  promise  ;  and  \\'e  have  good  reason, 
therefore,  to  anticipate  wrrrc^wicd  contributions  from  this 
source  to  the  regular  classes  of  the  school.  The  course  of 
study  for  this  department  has  been  arranged  to  give 
thorough  instruction,  in  the  elementary  branches,  so  that 
wiien  the  pupils  enter  the  school  they  will  be  well  prepared 
for  the  work  which  v.'ill  then  be  demanded  of  them.  Be- 
sides, if  all  is  accomplished  which  we  hope  for,  the  require- 
ments for  admission  into  our  fourth  class  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  school  year  can  be  considerably  increased,  and 
the  course  of  study  in  the  upper  classes  of  the  school  can 
]jc  extended  to  a  correspcniding  degree.  It  appears  to  be 
entirely  practicable  in  the  five  years'  course,  which  the  or- 
ganization of  this  department  allows  us,  to  prepare  our  boys 
to  enter  any  college,  or  to  graduate  them  with  as  complete 
a  school  education  as  is  afforded  anywhere. 

The  pupils  of  the  school  have,  during  the  past  year,  done 


j2  Mnvor  Conrdiitiys  Aiutiial  Riiuw. 

very  ^uud  work.  The  cxaniinatiuiis  fur  iM\)molion,  hckl  in 
March,  indicated  that  in  cacli  dc[)ai'tmcnl  id'  study  there 
had  been  considerable  advance  made,  and  the  averai^es  were 
better  than  I  have  ever  known.  The  first  class  especially* 
did  credit  to  themselves  and  to  their  teachers,  and  were 
worthy  recipients  of  the  first  certificates  of  graduation  issued 
by  the  .school.  Those  who  entered  Charleston  College 
elicited  from  the  professors  who  examined  them  words  of 
high  commendation.  It  ma\'  not  be  out  of  place  to  men- 
tion iiere,  that  for  four  consecutive  )'ears  at  the  College  ot 
Charleston  the  llrst  honor  has  been  awarded  to  our  High 
School  boys,  and  the  reports  which  ha\e  reached  nie  frouj 
other  colleges  as  to  the  standing  of  our  Alumni  have  been 
gratifying.  I  would  furthermore  state  that  at  the  recent 
competitive  examination  for  State  appointments  to  the 
Citadel  Academy,  the  first  place  was  gained  by  one  of  our 
pupils.  I  feel  satisfied  that  the  att.dnments  of  our  boys 
will  compare  fa\orably  with  those  of  boys  of  similar  age  in 
any  of  the  schools  of  the  countiy. 

The  average  number  of  pupils  during  the  year  i)ast  in  the 
regular  classes  of  the  school  has  been  \i\ ,  in  the  prci)aratory 
deijartment  40.  The  average  attendance  for  18S1  was  1 10. 
There  has  been  marked  improvement  in  the  daily  attendance 
for  the  ye.ir.  The  change  in  the  time  of  the  summer 
vacation  has  enabled  us  to  kcej)  our  classes  full,  u})  to  the 
close  of  the  school  term,  while  formerly  our  numbers 
invariably  diminished  from  about  the  middle  of  June ;  and 
during  July  the  sclu>ol  would  become  so  much  disorgani/.etl, 
In^ii  the  withdrawal  of  pupils  whose  parents  were  leaving 
the  city  for  the  summer,  as  to  make  it  very  difficult  to  do 
any  effective  work. 

The  recent  action  <jf  the  Legislature,  e.xtending  to  deserv- 
ing boys  at  the  Public  Schools  the  opportunity  of  enjoying 
the  advantages  which  the  High  School  offers,  w  ill  doubtless 
give  us  a  large  accession  from  these  sources.  This  increase, 
with  the  addition  to  our  numbers  which  we  may  reasonably 
anticipate  from  the  natural  growth  of  the  school,  will  in  a 
very  shprt  tinic  necessitate  more  spacious  accommotlations 


riducaiion   in   Charlcsioii. 


than  arc  now  at  our  command.  W'c  shall  soon  rcc|uirc  a 
new  buildint;-,  constructed  with  special  reference  to  our 
needs,  with  a;i  am})lc  number  of  class  rooms,  of  j)roi)er 
dimensions,  and  a  main  hall  which  would  seat  comfortably 
all  the  studen.ts,  and  which  could  also  be  used  on  public 
occasions.  I  would  therefore  suggest  the  importance  of 
devising"  plans  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  great  purpose. 
Much  of  the  work  already  done  by  the  Board,  with  the  co- 
operation, of  our  public  spirited  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  will 
remaiii  as  a  monument  of  their  zeal  and  devotion.  .\  well 
constructed  and  suitably  equipped  High  School  building 
would  be  the  crowning  glory  of  their  active  and  intelligent 
administration. 

riie  growth  of  the  school  w  ill  probably  also  soon  render 
it  necessary  that  the  lower  classes  as  well  as  the  preparatory 
department  should  be  divided  into  sections.  It  has  been 
deemed  expedient  already  to  pursue  this  course  in  most  of 
the  studies  of  the  fourth  class,  and  in  the  prim.ary  depart- 
ment. It  is  difficult  for  a  teacher  to  do  full  justice  to  his 
scholars  individually  if  the  class  numbers  more  than  twenty- 
five  or  thirt)-.  W'c  have  now  in  all  seven  teachers,  a  force 
sufficient  to  meet  present  demands;  but  in  the  ex'cnt  of  the 
accessions  anticipated,  a  larger  corps  of  instructors  will  be 
called  for. 

We  w^^cCi  at  once,  in  order  that  our  instruction  in  natural 
science  should  be  most  fruitful  in  results,  a  complete  set  of 
philosophical  apparatus.  Natural  science,  taught  from  a 
text  book  alone,  is  like  geography  taught  without  a  map. 
Experiments  constitute  its  very  groundwork.  The  scientific 
principle  which  the  boy  knows,  because  he  has  had  it  pre- 
sented to  his  observation,  or  because  he  has,  with  his  own 
hand,  tested  its  truth,  is  much  more  valuable  to  him  than 
that  which  he  simply  accepts  on  the  assertion  of  his  teacher 
or  his  text  book.  We  need  also  a  full  set  of  wall  maps, 
illustrating  ancient  and  modern  geography. 

The  High  School  in  the  past  has  uniformly  had  intimate 
relations  with  the  College  of  Charleston,  and  has  made  an- 
nual contributions  to  its  roll  of  students;  and  as  the  school 


^^  jfnyor  Courtctiflys  Ann  tin/  Ki-iiiu: 

"rows  anil  tievclops,  tlic  number  awiilin^  themselves  of  the 
advantntjcs  of  this  time-honored  iiistituf ion  will  doubtless 
be  very  much  larger. 

Our  good  old  cit)".  miii;  uf  \vhu>c  ^■.n^.  uaii  ^.^i  in  licr 
home  institutions  of  learning  have  been,  and  still  are,  at 
once  her  strength  and  her  ornament,  is  gradualh'  but  surely 
})ecoming  a  great  educational  centre.  The  reputation  she 
lias  attained  must  not  be  allowed  to  lose  any  of  its  lustre. 
What  has  been  alreatiy  accomplished  is  not  the  culmination 
of  our  work,  but  should  be  regarded  as  only  the  earnest  of 
still  greater  things.  Charleston  can  fulfil  no  higher  destin\- 
than  to  provide  for  her  sons,  and  for  others  who  may  come 
to  her  for  instruction,  the  largest  facilities  for  thorough  and 
extended  culture.  The  teachers  of  the  city  may  well  deem 
themselves  fortunate  in  being  permitted  to  contribute  b\- 
their  labors  so  directi)'  to  this  end.  I  am  sure  that  those 
of  us  wlio  are  identified  with  you  will  earnestly  and  con- 
scientiously co-operate  in  c\ery  plan  you  may  devise  to 
enable  the  High  School  to  do  a  wortiiy  jiait  in  achieving 
the  great  consummation. 

Respect  full}'  submitted, 

VIRGIL  C.   DlHHLi:, 

Principal , 

TrrF  roil  FOE  OF  CII  \KI  F<T(>\. 

I  he  Cmikl^i-   im     <    uaiic^lDii   i.-,  iKiirMl.;     Uir    Cujsc  ol  a  CCU- 

tury  of  corporate  existence,  having  been  chartered  in 
March,  1785. 

'•  The  first  meeting  of  the  Hoard  of  Trustees  was  held 
.It  the  State  Mouse  in  Charleston  '(the  present  Court- 
house)' in  August,  of  the  same  year.  In  the  early  l^oards 
of  Trustees  were  John  Rutledge,  Dict.itor  of  South  Caro- 
lina and  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  ;  David  Ramsa\-, 
Historian  of  the  State  and  the  United  States,  and  sometime 
{'resident  of  the  Continental  Congress;  Charles  Cotesworth 
rinckney,  Ambassador  to  Trance  and  author  of  the  patri- 
otic  sentiment    'millions   for  defence.'    cK:c. ;    llenrv  W'm, 


EiUtcatioii  ill   Cliarlcsloii. 


DeSaussurc,  father  oftlic  Equity  Juiisprudcncc  of  the  State  ; 
General  William  Washinc^ton,  whom  John  Randolph  called 
the  Marccllus  of  the  War  of  the  Revolution  ;  and  others, 
the  chiefs  and  leaders  of  the  noble  men  who  achieved  our 
redemption  from  Colonial  vassalage,  and  whose  names  arc  as 
familiar  to  us  as  household  words.  And  from  these  daj's 
to  the  present,  and  at  all  times,  the  purest  and  most  learned 
of  our  citizens  have  given  their  services  to  the  institution, 
and  manifested  a  livcK'  and  earnest  interest  in  its  welfare. 
What  a  galaxy  of  portraits  might  be  made  even  from  those 
who  were  living  within  our  personal  recollections. 

These  are  some  of  them  :  William  Drayton,  whose  fine 
instincts  as  a  gentleman  and  accomplishments  as  a  states- 
man made  him  the  fitting  representative  of  a  high-toned 
constituency  in  the  better  days  of  this  proud  city;  Thomas 
S.  Grimke,  wdio  united  the  simplicit}-  of  a  child,  the  ardor 
of  an  enthusiast,  and  the  inflexibility  of  a  patriot  with  a 
wealth  of  varied  learning  rarely  equalled  ;  Daniel  PLlliott 
Muger,  who  recalled  the  days  of  Rome,  when  the  virtue 
and  courage  and  dignity  of  Rome  shone  brighth'  in  her 
public  men  ;  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  the  gallant  champion  of  the 
rights  of  the  States  and  of  the  South,  in  one  of  the  great- 
est intellectual  conflicts  ever  witnessed  in  the  .Senate  of  the 
United  States  ;  Langdon  Cheves,  jurist,  financier  and  states- 
man, whose  robust  and  massive  intellect  had  a  reserve  of 
power  equal  to  any  demand  that  might  be  made  upon  it; 
Charles  Fraser,  for  near  forty  }-ears  a  Trustee  and  Treas- 
urer of  the  Boari;!,  a  man  of  exquisite  taste  and  refinement, 
artist,  scholar  and  poet;  and  that  favored  child  of  genius, 
James  L.  Petigru,  brilliant  and  profound,  with  a  wit  that 
flashed  like  the  scimetar  of  Saladin,  and  was  as  keen,  but 
whose  wit  was  argument  and  illustration,  and  his  reason 
sound  and  comprehensive  as  it  was  subtle,  tlie  acknow- 
ledged head  of  his  profession,  with  a  heart  tremblingl\- 
alive  to  every  generous  impulse,  at  one  time  melted  to  pit\- 
and  at  another  fired  with  resentment  and  indignation 
against  moral  or  legal  wrong,  the  man  of  courageous  soul, 
whose  love  of  the  right   never   succumbed  to  popular  favor 


id  .^favpr  Ctvtrfniny's  Annual  /\i:!,:c'. 

i<v  di>!.i\t.r.  ;;!ii  wiio  was  now  t!ic  peer  of  the  hij^hest  ami 
hft'ighticst,  and  who  was  now  the  friend  and  servant  of  the 
poor    and     oppressed    -nature's    nobleman  ;  '^        -^ 

*•  Mitchell  King^,  in  ])oint  of  lon^j.  active  and  unu varied  ser- 
vice the  most  devoted  friend  the  Collei^e  of  Charleston 
ever  had,  whose  services  as  teacher.  Trustee  and  President 
of  the  Hoard  cover  a  period  of  fifty  years — he  ijavc  it  his 
time,  attention  and  inoney,  in  life,  and  in  death  he  did  n<'>t 
forget  it,  bcqneathingr  to  it  a  numerous  and  costly  collec- 
tion of  classical  booK's — whose  literarx"  taste  and  attain- 
ments, his  elegant  and  refined  hospitality,  and  his  conspic- 
uous reputation  as  a  lawyer  and  judge,  mark  him  out  as 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  figures  of  the  generation  just 
passed  awa\".  Ho  was  an  Ionic  column  in  our  social 
edifice." 

And  let  me  add  to  the  list  the  name  of  William  I).  Por- 
ter, from  whose  address  before  the  Alumni  of  the  College 
of  Charleston,  delivered  in  1871^  the  foregoing  extract  is 
taken — most  lovable  and  loved,  and  whose  loss  we  freshly 
mourn  ;  a  graduate  and  Trustee,  and  enthusiastic  friend  of 
the  College.  As  he  said  of  Judge  King's  devotion  to  the 
College,  "  Mis  heart  was  in  the  matter."  He  dedicated  his 
facile  pen  to  the  cause  of  the  College. 

The  College  of  Charleston  has  through  these  long  )ears 
unassumingly,  but  patiently  and  faithfully,  continued  the 
good  work  of  fitting  our  young  men  for  the  duties  of  life  ; 
and  many  of  those  whose  names  have  adorned  the  annals 
of  the  city  and  .State  owe  the  culture  which  has  fitted  them 
for  the  duties  of  their  career,  to  the  thorough  training  re- 
ceived within  her  walls. 

"  Following  the  histor}-  of  this  institution,"  .says  IMr. 
Porter,  "  we  find  it  to  have  been  the  predominant  and  per- 
vading purpose  of  the  Trustees  to  foster  a  complete  sys- 
tem of  domestic  education,  and  to  this  end,  to  establish  on 
a  permanent  basis  a  //owe  College.  And  the  object  was  a 
patriotic  one.  No  city  or  State  can  grow  in  greatness  that 
tloes  not  give  her  sons  the  opportunity  of  an  education  at 
home." 


liducation   in   (  liarlcstoit.  37 

Aiul  this  end  has  boon  attained.  Tlic  College  of  Charles- 
ton, through  the  enlightened  liberality  of  the  City  Council 
and  private  benefactions — some  of  thcna,  such  as  Ephraini 
Ba}-nard's  gift  of  $i66,ODD,  nuinificent — lias  a  permanent  en- 
dowment, which,  providently  administered,  is  si'.fficicnt  for 
its  ordinary  wants. 

It  is  therefore  independent  of  political  influences  arid  sec- 
tarian patronage. 

Its  curriculum  does  not  need  to  be  modified  or  its  stand- 
ard debased  to  subserve  the  designs  of  any  faction  or  to 
conform  to  the  decrees  of  any  sect. 

Freedom  and  catholicity  it  possesses  bv  the  very  condi- 
tion of  its  existence,  and  freedom  and  catholicity  arc  the 
life  as  well  as  the  inspiration  of  higher  culture. 

The  College  course  comprehends  the  full  curriiuluiii ; 
languages,  ancient  and  modern,  science  and  literature,  im- 
parting a  breadth  and  symmetry  of  development,  which 
cannot  be  obtained  if  the  time  of  the  student  is  concentrated 
during  the  period  preceding  his  university  career,  upon 
special  professional  studies. 

Every  department  is  thoroughly  organized,  and  the 
course  of  instruction  in  each  is  broad,  deep  and  complete, 
furnishing  an  admirable  equipment  for  the  higher  walks  oi 
professional  life,  for  the  active  career  of  the  man  of  busi- 
ness, or  the  special  pursuits  of  exact  science  under  the 
guidance  of  the  university  or  the  technical  school. 

The  fact  that  the  number  of  students  is  small  affords  the 
rarest  facility  for  individual  trainino\  so  essential  a  factor 
in  any  complete  system  of  intellectual  development,  and 
one  which  the  conditions  of  our  ordinary  collegiate  courses 
seldom  render  practicable  or  even  possible. 

The  professors  are  all  men  who  have  devoted  their  lives 
to  teaching,  of  high  attainments,  long  experience  and  wide 
reputation. 

Within  the  last  year  the  Trustees  have  secured  the  ser- 
vices of  Professor  Henry  E.  Shepherd,  of  North  Carolina, 
who  so  long  and  successfully  discharged  the  responsible  du- 
ties of  Superintendent  of   Public  Instruction   for  the  City 


3S 


Mayor  Comti  iinv's  .liiiiiiti/  Rivii-ii'. 


of  Jialiiinorc,  as  I'rosiclciU  of  llic  C'olki^o  .uul  Professor  of 
Knglish  Language  and  Literature. 

The  tuition  is  almost  nominal — ;ii40  .i  year. 

'rhcrc  are  scholarships,  giving  support  as  well  as  tuiti<iii 
to  eight  students,  which  are  of  the  Ker  Hoyce  foundation. 

There  arc  a  number  of  scholarships,  giving  free  tuition, 
in  the  gift  of  the  Trustees  and  Faculty;  and  the  Hoard  o\ 
Trustees  ha\c  also  recenth'  offered  free  tuition  to  ever\- 
pupil  of  the  High  School  of  Charleston  who  graduates  from 
that  school  and   obtains  a  prescribed   degree  of  scholarship. 

H\-  the  provisions  of  the  Act  to  reorganize  the  School 
lioard  of  the  City  of  Charleston  and  to  give  it  the  power  of 
providing  a  liberal  education  for  meritorious  pupils,  passed 
22(1  December,  18S2,  and  herewith  printed  at  pages  273-7,4, 
meritorious  pupils  from  the  I'uhlic  Schools,  the  Ceiitral  and 
German  Academies,  may  be  educated  free  at  the  High 
School  of  Charleston  ;  and  free  honorary  scholarships  are 
also  provided  for  such  pupils  in  the  College  of  Charleston. 
This  unification  of  the  educational  s\-stem  (^f  Charleston, 
marks  an  era  in  the  educational  history  of  our  cit\\ 

The  re-cstablishmcnt  of  the  State  Military  Acailem\-  at 
the  Citadel,  and  the  liberal  patronage  which  it  has  received 
from  the  Legislature  and  the  people  of  the  State,  so  far 
from  being  regarded  by  the  Trustees  and  I'aculty  of  the 
College  of  Charleston  with  jealousy  or  grudging,  are  cor- 
dially approved  by  them  as  affording  a  most  v.duahle  ally 
in  the  cause  of  thorough  education. 

Again,  to  quote  from  the  thoughtful  ad(h-ess  of  Mr.  Por- 
ter: 

"  rh»-ie  .Mc  .-.ume  who  consider  that  too  mueh  attention 
is  given  in  the  collegiate  course  to  the  dead  l.inguages;  that 
language  is  only  a  \ehicle  of  thought,  an  i  not  a  substitute 
or  equivalent  for  it;  and  that  the  study  of  languages  is  the 
study  of  words  an(.l  leads  only  to  scholarship  ;  that  science 
on  the  other  hand  deals  with  i'acls;  that  facts  are  better 
than  words,  and  that  education  should  be  more  practical 
and  have  a  more  direct  reference  to  the  actual  ])ursuits  of 
life.     The  friends  of  classical    education    repi\'    that    (jrcel: 


Ediicafioii  in  Charleston.  39 

and  Lutiti  arc  the  model  aiul  master  languages  of  the  world  ; 
that  the  object  of  education  is  the  complete  training  of  the 
faculties,  and  that  the  stud\'  of  these  languages  is  the  best 
mental  discipline  known  to  the  world  ;  that  we  learn  things 
only  through  words,  and  that  the  object  of  College  educa- 
tion is  not  to  teach  a  calling  or  pursuit,  but  to  teach  the 
uses  of  the  mind,  and  so  to  train  its  powers  that  it  shall  be 
fitted  to  learn  or  accpiire  any  calling  that  ma)'  afterwards  be 
selected. 

"  Professor  Seele\',  author  of  Eccc  Homo,  sums  up  the  con- 
troversy in  a  single  sentence,  which  is  both  terse  and  clear: 
'  If  there  is  an.y  result  which  may  be  said  to  have  been 
fairly  attained  in  the  controversy  it  is  this — that  science 
must  come  in,  and  that  language  must  not  go  out.'" 

"The  argument  we  so  often  hear  against  the  study  of  the 
ancient  languages  conveyed  in  the  question,  why  should  I 
study  Greek  and  Latin  when  I  never  expect  to  have  to  rcail 
a  line  of  either  in  my  business?  is  very  much  as  if  a  pupil 
in  the  g\-mnastic  school  should  ask  the  teacher,  why  he 
should  exercise  with  an  Indian  club  or  climb  a  pole  when 
he  never  expects  to  use  the  one  or  climb  the  other  in  his 
bu'siness  .' " 

The  object  in  both  exercises  is  the  training,  mental  or 
physical,  which  gives  mental  or  physical  strength  and  supple- 
ness, and  not  the  actual  use  which  will  be  made  of  the 
thing  learned. 

The  College  of  Charleston  undoubtedly  affords  the  op- 
portunity for  a  thorough  and  liberal  education  to  those  who 
prefer  a  home  education,  or  who  cannot  afford  any  other. 

The  Trustees  and  I'^aculty  of  the  College  of  Charleston 
will  continue  to  devote  themselves  with  patient  energy  to 
the  task  of  teaching  the  parents  of  our  young  men  the 
value  of  the  education  which  they  offer  so  liberally  to  their 
sons,  and  wait  with  confidence  the  coming  of  the  time 
when  the  halls  o{  the  College,  as  well  as  the  Citadel,  will  be 
filled  with  the  young  men  of  the  city  and  State— there  are 
enough  young  men  without  education  for  both. 

The  College  of  Charleston  was  at  its  best  when  the  South 


40  .^fnvor  Coiirliniiy's  Annual  Rcric'c. 

CaroJiua  College  uiul   the   Ciladcl    aiul    Arson. d    Academics 
were  at  llicir  best. 

Wo  cannot  close  this  biancii  ul  the  subject  of  education 
better  than  as  we  begun,  with  a  passaj^e  iVom  Mr.  Porter's 
address,  Crom  which  we  have  (juoted  so  largelw 

**  It  is  certain  that  education  in  this  countr\-  uuL;ht  to  l>e 
more  thorough  and  exhaustive  than  it  is. 

w  -:f  x  -X-  'I'lie  cause  of  this  sluirt-cuniing  on  our  part 
is  to  be  found  in  the  eagerness  of  our  young  men  to  em- 
bark in  active  life,  and  in  the  deference  that  is  [)aid  to  this 
sentiment  or  proporsitv  in  our  place-^  and  system  of  in- 
struction. 

This  is  one  ui  me  \  kcm  or  \\eakne>be.s  ol  a  }  '.'ung  cuunlr}  , 
which  time  and  the  strong  educational  spirit  that  is  abroad 
w  ith  us  w  ill  (\.^^  most  to  cure.  We  cannot  expect  to  leap  at 
once  up  to  the  ideal  standard,  but  we  ma\-  progress  in  that 
tlirection. 

In  a  College  like  ours  the  curriculum.  k>\  h.\ed  course  ot 
study,  should  be  placed  at  a  high  point  of  elevation,  and  be 
vigorously  maintained.  .Ittach  more  value  to  quality  of 
instruction  than  to  I  he  nui/ihcr  of  stuiliiits,  the  Litter  will  in- 
evitably follow  the  former.  Let  the  institution  lift  the 
students  up,  not  the  students  drag  the  institution  down. 
A  partial  course  should  not  be  allowed.  It  is  a  temptation 
to  shrink  from  labor  which  a  young  man  cannot  resist,  and 
a  bounty  upon  c.iprice  or  indolence  which  should  not  be 
countenanced.  '•'"         "•■         ••  ■■  ■■  "■ 

The  object  (jf  a  College  is  to  afford  a  liber.d  aiid  compre- 
hensive education,  classical  and  scientific  ;  and  in  a  State 
that  la)-s  any  claim  to  literary  or  intellectual  character  such 
an  instituti'jn  is  as  necessary  as  primary  schools.  There  is 
no  reason  wh)-  the  College  of  Charleston  should  not  become 
the  leading  College  of  the  State,  and  a  leading  centre  not 
only  of  knowledge  but  of  refining  and  elex.iting  social  and 
moral  influences.  On  the  contrar\-.  there  are  many  reasons 
why  it  should  become  so.  "  "■  '•■  "' 

Kducate  your  sons  at  honu\  then,  from  the  priniiO)-  school 
to  the  Q\\(\  of  the  College  course.      1  each   them  l(j   love  the 


Education   ill   Cliarlcstou.  41 

land  of  their  fathers  ;  to  l<novv  by  heart  the  story  of  her  he- 
roic past,  and  to  realize  that  if  ever  there  was  a  need  for 
them  to  be  true  and  strons^'  and  steadfast,  it  is  in  the  time 
of  her  suffering  and  sorrow,  it  is  not  vainglorious  to  say 
that  we  are  sufficiently  satisfied  with  the  exhibitions  of  tal- 
ent, character  and  attainments  that  have  illustrated  our 
past,  to  desire  most  earnestly  their  renewal  and  perpetu- 
ation." 

THE  SOl'TH  CAROLINA   MILITARY  ACADEMY. 

I  cannot  close  this  review  of  our  city's  educational  organ- 
izations, without  expressing  my  gratification  at  the  presence 
in  our  city,  once  again,  of  that  institution,  a  memory  of  the 
olden  time,  now  by  the  State  revived — the  South  Carolina 
Military  Academy.  I  rejoice  in  the  re-establishment  of  this 
educational  power,  both  because  it  links  the  city,  in  its  gen- 
eral educational  work,  to  the  State  at  large,  through  the 
many  representatives  of  South  Carolina's  sons  in  our  midst 
from  every  County  in  the  State,  and  also  because  through 
its  '\'\ris  and  Anns,''  and  general  education,  we  have  a  pow- 
erful factor  for  good,  both  within  and  beyond  the  city,  in 
the  awakened  spirit  wdiose  purpose  is  the  mental  and  moral 
culture  of  our  people.  I  greet  this  institution  as  a  sister  in 
our  home,  and  we  look  to  her  aid  and  co-operation  in  the 
great'future  we  propose  for  our  sons,  in  the  rising  schools 
of  City  and  State. 

CLASSICAL  LEARNING. 

The  marked  increase  of  interest  in  higher  educati(Mi  which 
has  recently  been  manifested  in  Charleston,  and  the  growing 
conviction  that  now,  and  in  our  present  condition  more  than 
ever,  a  "liberal  education"  is  essentially  the  most  "practi- 
cal education,"  make  it  appropriate  to  republish  the  follow- 
ing eloquent  and  effective  plea  for  the  study  of  the  classics, 
and  especially  of  Greek,  from  the  pen  of  South  Carolina's 
most   distinguished   and   finished   scholar,  Hugh  S.  Legare. 


^2  Miivor  Coi/r/i'/itiy's  Aiintml  Kcvwu'. 

Mr.  Lcgare's  success  and  distinction  as  la\v\Lr,  advo- 
cate and  statesman,  were  due  in  a  marked  decree  to  his 
c-minent  attainments  as  a  scliolar;  and  his  career  should  be 
a  constant  incentive  to  the  young  men  of  Carolina,  who 
hope  to  attain  the  rewards  of  honorabk:  ambition,  ratlur 
tlirough  a  fitness  derived  iVom  study  and  culture,  than  by 
the  sordid  accumulation  of  wealth,  or  the  arts  of  the  dema- 
gogue. 

The  extracts  here  published  are  from  an  article  in  the 
"Southern  Review,"  of  which  Mr.  I.egare  was  editor,  in 
1S28,  and  which  is  probably  known  to  comparatively  few. 
Ihe  article  is  a  review  of  three  addresses  then  reccntl\'  de- 
livered: the  first,  by  lion.  Thomas  S.  Grimke,  on  "ihe 
Character  and  Objects  of  Science,  and  especially  on  the  In- 
tluence  of  the  Reformation  on  the  Science  and  Literature, 
past,  present  and  future,  of  Protestant  Nations:  delivered 
in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Charleston,  on  Wednes- 
day, the  9th  of  May.  1827.  being  the  anniversary  of  the 
Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  South  Carolina;"  the 
second,  "An  Address  delivered  before  the  South  Carolina 
Society,  on  the  occasion  of  opening  the  ^Ldc  .\cademy  on 
the  2d  July,  1827,  by  \Vm.  Geo.  Read,  Principal  of  the  same  ;" 
the  third,  "  hiaugural  Discourse,  delivered  in  TrinitN'  Church, 
Ijeneva,  N.  V..  August  1st,  1827,  by  the  Rev.  Jasper  Adams, 
President  of  Geneva  College,"  formerly  President  of  the 
College  of  Charleston. 

A  considerable  portion  of  the  article  is  taken  up  with 
a  review  of  Mr.  (irimke's  comparison  between  the  ancients 
.md  inoderns,  and  an  answer  to  his  objections  to  the  studv 
of  the  classics,  and  is  very  controversial  in  tone.  All  such 
portions  arc  omitted  in  these  extracts,  except  where  neces- 
sary to  understand  ]\Ir  Legare's  plea  for  the  study  of  the 
classics. 

**  A  formal  discussion  at  this  time  of  day  of  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  the  ancients  and  moderns,  and  the  ad\  antages 
of  a  classical  education,  would  be  set  down  in  England  by 
the  .side   of  that   not.ible   argument  to  prove  that  a  general 


lidncation  in  Char/cslon.  43 

can  do  nothing  without  troops,  of  which,  Cicero,  if  we  mis- 
take not,  lias  somewhere  made  such  honorable  mention. 
Hut  what  might  there  very  properly  be  rejected  as  superero- 
gation, or  even  quizzed  as  downright  twaddling,  (to  borrow 
a  phrase  from  an  English  magazine)  may  be  imperiously 
called  for  by  the  state  of  public  opinion  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  The  Edinburgh  Review,  in  an  able  and  elaborate 
article  on  Cobbett's  writings,  dispatched  his  opinions  upon 
the  subject  now  before  us  in  a  summary  and  sweeping  de- 
nunciation, as  "  his  trash  about  the  learned  languages."  But 
what  shall  we  say,  when,  in  the  midst  of  a  society  once  dis- 
tinguished above  all  others  in  this  country  by  these  very 
attainments,''^  a  gentleman  having  so  many  and  such  high 
claims  to  our  respect,  as  Mr.  Grimke,  declares  it  to  be  his 
solemn  conviction — and  that,  too,  formed,  as  he  assures  us. 
upon  the  fullest  and  fairest  experiment — that  they  arc  abso- 
lutely good  for  nothing.  Nor  does  that  gentleman  stand 
alone.  We  have  frequently  heard  the  same  opinions  ex- 
pressed by  persons  of  scarcely  less  authority  and  influence 
in  the  Southern  States,  to  say  nothing  of  occasional  essays 
in  the  newspapers  and  periodicals,  and  discourses  before  the 
philosophical  and  literary  societies  of  other  cities.  It  is 
quite  impossible,  therefore,  we  apprehend,  however  strong- 
ly inclined  we  might  be  to  do  so,  to  consider  the  instance 
before  us  as  a  mere  sporadic  case,  deserving,  indeed,  on  ac- 

*  Before  and  just  after  the  Revolution,  many,  perhaps  it  would  be  more  .accurate  to  s.ay 
mo?;t,  of  our  youth  of  opulent  families  were  educated  at  English  Schools  and  Universities. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  their  attainments  in  polite  literature  were  very  far  superior  to  those 
of  their  contemporaries  at  the  North,  and  the  standard  of  scholarship  in  Charleston  was,  con- 
sequently, much  higher  than  in  any  other  city  on  the  continent.  We  have  still  amongst  us  a 
venerable  relic  of  that  cultivated  and  heroic  age,  whom  we  may  single  out  without  ananvidioiis 
distinction,  and  to  whom  we  gladly  avail  ourselves  of  this  opportunity  to  offer  a  tri1)ute  justly 
due  to  such  a  union  in  one  accomplished  character,  of  the  patriot,  the  gentleman,  and  the 
scholar— of  the  loftiest  virtue,  exercised  in  all  the  important  offices  and  trying  conflicts  of  life, 
with  whatever  is  most  amiable  and  winning  in  social  latitudes,  in  polished  manners  and  an  ele- 
gant taste.  To  add  that  he  is  now  crowning  the  honors  of  his  useful  and  blameless  life,  with  a 
blessed  and  venerated  old  age,  is  only  to  say,  that  he  has  received  the  sure  reward  /«;v  et 
elcganter  actcp  iptatis.  But  there  is  something  melancholy  in  the  reflection,  that  the  race  of 
such  men  is  passing  away,  and  that  our  youth  are  now  taught  to  form  themselves  upon  other 
models.  These  improvements,  with  so  many  more,  are  beginning  to  spring  up  and  blossom 
with  great  freshness  and  lux-uriance  about  the  favored  City  of  Boston— our  Western  Florence, 
i-n  which  industry  has  been  the  willing  tributary  of  letters  and  the  arts,  and  which  is  through- 
out all  its  institutions,  its  character  and  its  pursuits,  one  great  monument  of  what  commerce 
has  done  to  civilize  and  adorn  life. 


44  Mtivor  Cotirfimiys  Ann  no/  Riviric. 

count  of  its  peculiarly  .»j,'giavatcd  symptom^,  t-)  he  rcinarkcil 
and  recorded  as  a  strikinj^  phenomciK>n  in  its  kiiul.  but  noX 
calculated  to  excite  any  alarm  froiii  its  supposed  connection 
with  the  state  of  the  atmosphere,  or  its  probable  effects 
upon  the  general  health  of  the  vicinage.  We  do  believe. 
on  the  contrary,  that  this  grievous  malady  is  of  an  endcmial 
or  epidemic  class,  and  that  it  behoves  all  who.  with  us. 
tiiink  it  a  matter  of  serious  jniblic  concernment  that  its 
progress  should  be  arrested,  to  apply  the  most  efficacious 
remedies,  and  adopt  all  necessary  precautions  with  the 
least  possible  dela)'. 

L'avarice,  sa}s  La  Rochefoucauit,  est  plus  opposee 
a  I'economie  que  la  liberalite.  We  have  the  same  answer 
to  make  to  those,  who,  in  the  matter  of  education  would 
sacrifice  what  is  really  useful  to  their  own  narrow  or  per- 
verse tlicory  of  utility,  and  out  of  sheer  abhorrence  of  the 
luxuries  and  prodigality  of  learning,  would  indulge  the 
neophj'te  in  a  very  scanty  allowance  of  its  bare  necessaries. 
They  who  apply  to  literature  this  radical,  levelling,  degrad- 
ing r/// /^^//t?  test — who  estimate  genius  and  taste  by  their 
value  in  exchange  and  weigh  the  results  of  science  in  the 
scales  of  the  mone\--changer,  ma\-  be  wiser  in  their  genera- 
tion than  the  disinterested  votaries  of  knowledge — but  they 
jiave,  assuredly,  made  no  provision  in  their  system  for  the 
noblest  purposes  of  our  being.  The  same  thing  ma\-  be 
said  of  those,  who  are  for  sacrificing  what  arc  rather  am- 
biguously called  the  ornamental  to  what  arc  just  as  absurdly 
considered  as  par  excellence  the  useful  parts  of  education. 
According  to  this  theory  a  boy  should  be  taught  mathe- 
matics, chemistry,  mineralogy,  metaphysics,  and  the 
metaphysical  part  of  moral  philosophy,  and  be  allowed  from 
his  most  tender  years,  we  suppose,  to  dabble  ad  libitnin  in 
politics,  speculative  and  practical — in  other  words,  he  is  to 
be  brought  up  in  studies,  which,  although  they  lead  to  far 
more  important  results,  are,  as  a  mere  discipline  for  youth 
with  a  view  to  future  usefulness  in  life,  we  really  think,  not 
a  great  deal  better  than  the  dry  and  thorny  dialectics  of  the 
schoolmen,  while  no  object  should  be  suffered  to  approach 


Education  in   Cluirlcston.  45 

liim  that  may  speak  to  his  taste,  his  imac^M nation  or  his 
Ileal  [.  Our  youth  arc  to  be  trained  up  as  if  thev  were  all 
destined  to  be  druggists  and  apothecaries,  or  navigators  and 
mechanists — or,  if  it  sounds  better,  they  arc  to  be  deeply 
versed  in  the  ceconom\'  of  the  universe,  and  the  most 
recondite  and  shadowy  subtleties  of  transcendental  geome- 
try, or  transcendent  psycology — but  v;!iat,  after  all,  ought 
to  be  the  capital  object  of  education,  to  form  the  moral 
character,  not  by  teaching  what  to  tliink  but  persuading  to 
act  well  ;  not  by  loading  tlie  memory  with  cold  and  barren 
precepts,  but  forming  the  sensibility  by  the  habitual,  fervid 
and  rapturous  contemplation  of  high  and  lieroical  models 
of  excellence  ;  not  by  definitions  of  virtue  and  speculations 
about  the  principle  of  obligation,  but  by  making  us  locc  the 
one  and /"cr/ the  sacredness  of  the  other — would,  in  such  a 
system  of  discipline,  be  sadly  neglected.  This  is  a  radical 
and  an  incurable  defect  in  the  cni  bono  theor\'.  If  we  com- 
pare different  reras  of  history  with  each  other,  and  inquire 
what  it  is  that  distinguishes  the  flourishing  and  pure  from 
the  degenerate  and  declining  state  of  commonwealths,  we 
shall  seldom  find  that  it  is  any  falling  off  in  mere  specula- 
tive knowledge,  or  even  in  the  mass  of  talent  and  ability 
displayed  at  any  one  time.  The  softest  S}-barites  of 
Juvenal's  day  provoked  his  indignant  satire  by  talking  of 
morality  with  the  sternness  of  Cato— courage  was,  no 
doubt,  as  well  understood  and  defined  by  the  Sophists  who 
lectured  to  the  slavish  and  cowardly  successors  of  the 
.Scipios,  as  it  had  been  in  the  wars  against  Pyrrhus  and 
Hannibal — and  legislation  became  more  ingenious  just  in 
proportion  as  it  was  less  efficacious,  according  to  the 
pointed  saying  of  the  great  historian — corruptissimn  rcpublicd 
phwiince  leges!''  But  what  a  difference  was  there,  and  how 
essential  is  that  difference  in  the  eyes  of  posterity,  between 
the  age  of  Cicero  and  that  of  Domitian  (to  go  no  further") 
in  genius,  in  taste  and  in  moral  character!      "      ""      ■"'     ■'• 

We  really  cannot,  with  a   clear  conscience,  undertake   to 
promise,  that  Greek  and  Latin  will  make  better  artisans  and 

*  Tacit.  Ann.  1.  iii. 


46  Mnyor  Coiirtctinv's  Anininl  Rt'./i:^'. 

manufacturers,  or  more  thrifty  ceconomi<;ts ;  or,  in  short. 
more  useful  and  skilful  men  in  ordinary  routine  of  life,  or 
its  mere  mechanical  offices  and  avocation^.  W'c  slioulil 
s!ill  refer  a  youn^  student  of  law.  aspirin^j;  to  an  insight  into 
the  mere  craft  ami  mystery  of  special  pleading  to  Saunders' 
Reports  rather  than  to  Cicero's  Tojiics  ;  tJic  itinerant  field 
preacher  would  doubtless  find  abundantly  greater  edifica- 
tion, and  for  //is  purposes,  mi^re  profitable  doctrine,  in  hon- 
est John  J-}un\-an.  than  in  all  the  speculations  of  the 
Lyceum  and  the  Academics;  ami  we  do  conscientiously  be- 
lieve, that  not  a  single  case,  more  or  less,  of  yellow  fe\-cr. 
would  be  cured  by  the  facult\-  in  this  cit\-,  for  all  that  Hip- 
pocrates and  Celsus  have  saitl.  or  that  has  been  c\er  said 
(or  sung)  of  Chiron  and  .Msculapius.  It  is  true,  their 
peculiar  studies  would  not  be  hurt,  and  might,  occasionally, 
even  be  ver\-  much  helped  and  facilitated  by  a  familiar  ac- 
quaintance with  these  languages;  and  what  would  the\-  not 
gain  as  enlightened  and  accomplished  men  !  l^ut  it  is  not 
fair  to  consider  the  subject  in  that  light  onl\-.  It  is  from 
this  false  state  of  the  controversy  that  the  argument  of  Mr. 
Cirimke  derives  all  its  plausibility.  We,  on  the  contrar\'. 
take  it  for  granted  in  our  reasonings,  that  the  .American 
people  are  to  aim  at  doing  something  more  than  "to  ilraw 
existence,  propagate  and  rot."  We  suppose  it  to  be  oui- 
common  ambition  to  become  a  cultivated  and  a  literary 
nation.  Upon  this  assumption,  what  we  contend  for,  is. 
that  the  study  of  the  classics  is  and  ought  to  be  an  essential 
part  of  a  liberal  education — that  education  of  which  the 
object  is  to  make  accomplishctl,  elegant  and  learned  men-  - 
to  chasten  and  to  discipline  genius,  to  refine  the  taste,  to 
(pncken  the  perceptions  of  decorum  and  propriet)',*  to  jmrify 
and -exalt  the  moral  sentiments,  to  fill  the  soul  with  a  dee]i 
love  of  the  beautiful  both  in  moral  and  material  nature,  to 
lift  up  the  aspirations  of  man  to  objects  that  are  wcn'th}'  of 
his  noble  faculties  and  his  immortal  destin\' — in  a  word,  to 
raise  him  as  far  as  possible  above  those  selfish  and  sensual 
propensities,  and  those  grovelling  pursuits  and  that  mental 

"    .Niliil  c^l  (lilVii  iliiK  i)uaili  illiiii  <li<  (.Ml  \  iiliTC,--(  /<'. 


llditcatioii  ill   Chaiicstoii. 


47 


blindness  and  coarseness  and  apath\',  which  dcf^raile  the 
savage  and  the  boor  to  a  condition  but  a  little  higher  th.m 
that  of  the  brutes  that  perish.  We  refer  to  that  education 
and  to  those  improvements,  \\hich  draw  the  broad  line 
between  civilized  and  barbarous  nations,  which  have 
crowned  some  chosen  spots  with  glory  and  immortality,  and 
covered  them  all  over  with  a  magnificence,  that,  even  in  its 
mutilated  and  mouldering  remains,  draws  together  pilgrims 
of  every  tongue  and  of  every  clime,  and  which  have  caused 
their  names  to  fall  like  a  'breathed  spell'  upon  the  ear  of 
the  generations  that  come  into  existence,  long  after  the 
tilles  of  conquest  and  violence  have  swept  over  them,  and 
left  them  desolate  and  fallen.  It  is  such  studies  we  mean, 
as  make  that  vast  difference  in  the  eyes  of  a  scholar  between 
.Vthens,  their  seat  and  shrine,  and  even  Sparta  with  all  her 
civil  wisdom  and  military  renown,  and  have  (hitherto  at 
least)  fixed  the  gaze  and  the  thoughts  of  all  men  with  curi- 
osity and  wonder,  upon  the  barren  little  peninsula  between 
Mount  Citlueron  and  Cape  Sunium,  and  the  islands  and  the 
shores  around  it,  as  they  stand  out  in  lonely  brightness  and 
dazzling  relief  amidst  the  barbarism  of  the  West  on  tlie  one 
hand,  and  the  dark  and  silent  and  lifeless  wastes  of  oriental 
despotism  on  the  other.  Certainly  we  do  not  mean  to  say, 
that  in  any  system  of  intellectual  discipline,  poetry  ought 
to-be  preferred  to  the  severe  sciences.  (3n  the  contrary,  we 
consider  every  scheme  of  merely  elementary  education  as 
defective,  unless  it  develope  and  bring  out  all  the  faculties 
of  the  mind,  as  far  as  possible,  into  equal  and  harmonious 
action,  l^ut,  surely,  we  may  be  allowed  to  argue  from  the 
analogy  of  things,  and  the  goodness  that  has  clothed  all 
nature  in  beauty,  and  filled  it  with  music  and  with  fragrance, 
and  that  has  at  the  same  time  bestowed  upon  iis  such  vast 
and  refined  capacities  of  enjoyment,  that  nothing  can  be 
more  extravagant  than  this  notion  of  a  day  of  philosophical 
illumination  and  didactic  soberness  being  at  hand,  when 
men  shall  be  thoroughly  disabused  of  their  silly  love  for 
poetr\'  and  the  arts.  Indeed,  we  know  nothing  that  at  all 
comes    up    to    this   idea,  but  a  tirade  of  one    of  Moliere's 


^S  Mayor  Coiirtiiiiiy's  Annual  Ri.xiiic. 

comic  heroes  ^^Sgana relic  \vc  bclicvci  a>;aiii>l  the  pernicious 
charms  of  women — who,  however,  winds  up  iiis  invectives, 
as  miijht  JKue  been  e.\i)ectc<.l.  by  the  bitter  .i\owal 

^  opciulant  on  fait  loul  pour  ces  nniiiiau\  l.i. 

Sj  it  is,  has  bicn,  a;ul  ever  will  be  (it  is  more  tiian  jjrobable  > 
aslonjT  as  man  is  constituted  as  he  is.  .Vnd  the  same  thini; 
may  be  said  of  poetry  and  tlic  arts,  which  are  onl\-  another 
form  of  it.  I'lir  what  is  poetry?  ll  is  but  an  abridged  name 
for  tlie  sublime  and  beautiful,  and  for  hit;h  wrought  pathos. 
ll  is.  as  Coleridge  quaintly.  \et.  we  think,  felicitously  e.x- 
prcsses  it,  '"the  blossom  and  the  tragrance  of  all  hum.m 
knowledge,"  It  appears  not  only  in  those  combinations  of 
creative  genius  of  which  the  beau  idcnl  is  the  professed 
object,  but  in  others  that  might  seem  at  first  sight  but  little 
allied  to  it.  It  is  spread  o\er  the  whole  face  of  nature  — it 
is  in  the  glories  of  the  heavens  and  in  the  wonders  of  the 
great  tleep,  in  the  voice  of  the  cataracts  and  of  the  coming 
storm,  in  .^Ipine  precipices  aiul  solitudes,  in  the  balmy  gales 
and  sweet  bloom  and  freshness  of  spring.  It  is  in  ever\' 
jieroic  achievement,  in  every  lofty  sentiment,  in  every  deep 
j)assion.  in  ever}-  bright  vision  of  fanc}-.  in  e\ery  vehement 
affection  of  gladness  or  of  grief,  of  pleasure  or  pain.  It  is, 
ill  short,  the  feeling — the  deep,  the  strictly  moral  feeling, 
which,  A\lien  it  is  affected  by  chance  or  change  in  human 
life,  as  at  a  tragedy,  we  call  s}mpath)' — but  as  it  appears  in 
the  still  more  mysterious  connection  between  the  heart  of 
man  and  the  forms  and  beauties  of  inanimate  nature,  as  if 
the)'  were  instinct  with  a  soul  and  a  sensibility  like  our  ow  n, 
has  no  appropriate  appellation  in  our  language,  but  is  not 
the  less  real  or  the  less  familiar  to  our  experience  on  that 
account.  It  is  these  feelings,  whether  utterance  be  gi\en 
to  them,  or  the}-  be  only  nursed  in  the  smitten  bosom 
wiiether  they  be  couched  in  metre,  or  poured  out  with  wild 
disorder  and  irrepressible  rapture,  that  constitute  the  true 
spirit  and  essence  of  poetry,  which  is,  therefore,  necessarily 
connected  with  the  grandest  conceptions  and  the  most 
touching  and  ij)tcnse  emotions,  with  the  fondest  aspirations 


Education  in   Charleston.  49 

and  the  most  awful  concerns  of  mankind.  For  instance, 
religion  has  been  in  all  ages  and  countries  the  great  foun- 
tain of  poetical  inspiration,  and  no  harps  have  been  more 
musical  than  those  of  the  Prophets.  What  would  Mr. 
Grimke  say  of  him  whose  lips  were  touched  by  one  of  the 
Seraphim  with  a  live  coal  from  off  the  altar;  or  docs  he 
expect  the  day  to  come  when  the  '*  wide-spread  influence  of 
moral  wisdom  and  instructed  common  sense  "shall  assign 
to  the  Psalms  or  the  Book  of  Job,  in  the  library  of  a  culti- 
vated mind,  a  lower  place  than  to  Robertson  and  Hume? 
Milton  pronounces  "our  sage  and  serious  poet  Spenser,"  a 
better  teacher  than  Scotus  and  Aquinas — and  in  another 
place,  has  expressed  himself  to  the  same  effect  so  adniirably, 
and,  for  our  piesent  purpose,  so  appositel}-,  that  we  cannot 
refrain  from  citing  the  whole  passage :  "To  which  (viz: 
logic)  poetry  should  be  made  subsequent —or,  indeed,  rather 
precedent,  as  being  less  subtile  and  fine,  and  more  simple, 
sensuous  and  passionate.  I  mean  not  here  the  prosody  of 
a  verse,  which  they  could  not  but  have  hit  on  before,  among 
the  rudiments  of  grammar,  but  that  sublime  art  which  in 
Aristotle's  Poetics,  in  Horace,  and  the  Italian  commentaries 
of  Castlevctro,  Tasso,  Mazzoni,  and  others,  teaches  what 
the  laws  are  of  a  true  epic  poem,  what  of  a  dramatic,  what 
of  a  lyric,  what  decorum  is,  which  is  the  great  masterpiece 
to  observe.  This  would  make  them  soon  perceive  what 
despicable  creatures  our  common  rhymers  and  play-writers 
be,  and  shew  them  what  religious,  what  glorious  and  mag- 
nificent use  might  be  made  of  poetry,  both  in  divine  and 
human  things."     (Tract:  on  Education.) 

We  have  enlarged  the  more  upon  this  head,  because  we 
have  uniformly  observed  that  those  who  question  the  utility 
of  classical  learning  are  at  bottom  equally  unfavorable  to  all 
elegant  studies.  They  set  out,  it  is  true,  in  a  high-flown 
strain,  and  talklargely  about  the  superiority  of  modern  genius. 
But  the  secret  is  sure  to  be  out  at  last.  When  ihey  have 
been  dislodged  one  by  one  from  all  'chc'w  literary  positions, 
they  never  fail  to  take  refuge  in  this  cold  and  desolate 
region  of  utilitv.     They  begin  by  discoursing  magnificently 


JO  Miivor  Courftfinv  s  Aiiitual  Ri--iiv>.'. 

of  orators,  poets  and  philosophers,  and  the  best  discipHne 
for  forming  them,  and  end  by  citing  the  examples  of  A.  the 
broker,  or  H,  the  attorney,  or  C  and  D.  members  of  Con- 
gress, and  u  hat  not,  who  have  all  got  along  in  the  world 
without  the  least  assistance  from  Latin  and  Greek.  Just  as 
if  everybod\-  diil  not  know  that,  as  that  sage  moralist,  h'igaro 
has  it,  pour  avoir  dit  bicn  Ic  savoir  /aire  vaiit  iiiiciix  que  Ic 
savoir;  and  just  as  if  our  supposed  great  men  had  troubled 
their  heads  any  more  about  the  exact  sciences  and  modern 
literature,  than  about  the  classics,  or  were  not  quite  as  little 
indebted  to  Newton,  to  Milton,  or  to  Tasso,  as  to  Virgil 
and  Tully,  and  just  as  if  an  argument  which  proves  so  much, 
were  gpod  for  anj'thing  at  all  I 

Mr.  Grimke's  assertion  that  the  ancients  did  nothing  in 
fthics  struck  us  as  one  of  the  boldest  (and  that  is  saying 
muchi  in  his  whole  discourse.  We  have  been  always 
accustomed  to  think  that  if  those  refined  ages  have  left  us 
anything,  in  any  department  of  knowledge,  of  \\hich  the 
excellence  is  beyond  all  dispute,  it  is  (after  the  Cireek 
geometr\',  perhaps,)  their  moral  philosophw  We  presume 
it  will  not  be  considered  as  derogating  from  their  merit  in 
this  particular,  that  they  did  not  b\'  mere  dint  of  reasoning, 
// /»/7Vr/,  make  themselves  partakers  in  the  benefits  of  the 
Christian  Revelation.  Neither  do  we  conceive  ourselves 
responsible  for  certain  strange  customs  and  Jieathenish 
practices  into  which  they  occasionally  fell  in  their  conduct 
and  way  of  living.  We  must  rp[)eat,  once  more,  that  the 
(|uestion  here  is  not  what  the  mass  of  mankind  in  those 
ages  were  or  did,  but  what  the  elite  wrote  and  spoke,  and 
not  whether  we  should  follow  the  example  of  the  former, 
but  whether  we  ought  to  study  the  literary  works  of  the 
latter.  We  concede,  therefore,  to  save  trouble,  that  their 
morality — that  for  instance  of  Rome  in  the  time  of  the  first 
I'unic  war — would  not  be  good  encjugh  to  stand  the  severe 
censure  of  London,  of  Paris,  or  of  New  "\'ork.  Let  us  now 
see  how  it  fares  in  other  respects  with  Mr.  (irimke's  propo- 
sition. 

i  he   science   of   morals  has   been   \ery   properly    divided 


f'.ducatioii  ill   Charleston.  5  I 

into  two  distinct  kinds.  Tlie  one  contemplates  man  as  an 
acti\'e  bcine^,  having  dnties  to  perform  and  obligations  to 
fnlfil,  approving  good  and  disapproving  evil,  pursuing  hap- 
piness and  avoiding  misery  and  pain.  The  other  regards 
this  moral  constitution  itself  as  a  subject  of  inquiry  and 
analysis,  and  aims  at  explaining  its  phenomena  (with  how 
much  success  Mr.  Grimke  may,  perhaps,  be  able  to  inform 
our  readers)  in  the  same  way  as  natural  philosophy  arranges 
and  accounts  for  those  of  the  material  world.  The  former 
is  obviously  practical — the  latter  altogether  speculative  and 
metaphysical.  Under  the  discipline  of  the  first,  we  are 
taught  to  love  virtue,  to  feel  what  is  so  beautifully  called 
in  the  language  of  the  Scriptures  "the  beauty  of  holiness," 
to  abstain  from  false  and  deceptive  pleasures,  and  pursue 
only  rational  and  solid  good,  to  resist  the  temptations  and 
to  encounter  with  fortitude  and  patience  the  conflicts  and 
sufferings  of  life — and,  above  all  things,  "  to  hate  the 
cowardice  of  doing  wrong."  In  one  word,  it  is  the  great 
object  of  this  part  of  a  "  generous  education  "  to  fit  a  man, 
as  Milton  expresses  it,  for  performing  justly  and  magnani- 
mously all  the  offices,  both  public  and  private,  of  peace  and 
war.  The  end  of  the  second  is  nothing  more — its  fruit,  at 
least,  has  been  and  can  be  nothing  more  than  the  gratifica- 
tion of  a  liberal — certainly,  but  still  an  unprofitable  curios- 
ity, by  shewing  zvJiy  it  is  we  love  virtue,  what  is  the  princi- 
ple of  obligation,  whether  it  is  utility  or  a  moral  sense  or 
sympathy,  or  what  else  that  causes  us  to  approve  or  to 
blame,  &:c.  Now,  in  the  former  kind,  the  ancients  not  only 
attained  to  a  high  degree  of  excellence,  but  there  is  nothing 
in  all  that  the  copious  literature  of  modern  tin:>es  has  to 
boast  of— with  the  exception, /rr//^/^,  of  Telemachus  and 
the  finest  compositions  of  Addison — that  will  bear  a  mo- 
ment's comparison  with  the  dialogues  of  Plato  and  Tull}% 
to  say  nothing  of  the  numerous  other  remains  of  the  Por- 
tico, the  Lyceum  and  the  Academy,  that  have  come  down  to 
us.  This  position  is  quite  incontrovertible,  and  has  been, 
if  we  are  not  very  much  mistaken,  stated  in  so  many  words 
bv  the  author  of  one  of  the  most  ingenious,  and  by  far  the 


-J  Mayor  Courtitinv's  Annuo/  Ri'viixc. 

most  cloquciu    uoik  on   the  otlK-r,  or  niclaph>siccil,   biancli 
<»f  moral  philosophy  that   lias   ever   been   published.      It    is 
impossible,  intlecLl,  to  ima^^inc  anything  more  sublime  ami 
consoling,  more  sweet,  more  touching,  more  persuasive  than 
the  Apology  for  Socrates,  the  Crilo  and  the    Pluxdo  of  his 
"rcat  disciple,  or  the  Somnium  Scipionis,  the  whole  Treatise 
de   Senectute,  but   especially  the   close  of  it,  the  Tuscuhm 
Questions,  nay,  all  that  rcmair.s  in  this  kind  of  the  Roman 
orator.     As  for  the  metaphysical  part  of  this  science  of  hu- 
man nature,  u  e   would   express   ourselves   with  a  becoming 
diffidence— but  we  must  be  allowed  to  say.  that   until  Mr. 
(irimke  shall  have  put  his  finger  upon  any  one  thing,  in  the 
whole  compass  of  it,  that  is  perfectly  settled  and  has  been 
recognized  as  a  profitable,  and,  as  he  would  call  x^,  pracliinl 
addition  to   the   stock  of  human   knowledge,  we   shall  con- 
tinue  to  think  it,  as  \vc    now  do,  very   immaterial   whether 
the  ancients  or  the  moderns  have  had  the   best  of  it  in  this 
nocturnal,  and  what   is  worse,  far  from   decisive,  conflict  ot 
wits.     Nothing  is  more  possible  than   that  we  are  ignorant 
of  the  understanding  of  these  writers,  instead  of  understand- 
ing their  ignorance,   according  to  the   distinction  of  an  in- 
genious admirer  of  the  philosophy  of  Kant.     Be  it  so.     W'e 
do,  however,  for  our  own  part,  cheerfully  resign  these  thorny 
and  unprofitable  studies  to  those  who  profess  to  comprehend 
and  to  read  with  edification  such  things  as  the  Theaetetus 
of  Plato,  or  the  cloudy  transcendentalism   of  the  German 
school.     In  the  meantime,  without   denying,  as  we  do  not 
deny,  that  a  young   man   ought,  about    his  seventeenth   or 
eighteenth  year,   to  study   metaphysics,    for  several  good 
reasons,    we    fearlessly    appeal    to    our    readers    to    decide 
whether  he  ought  not  to  be  deeply  imbued   with  the  spirit 
and  the  precepts  of  ancient  ethics,  conveyed  as  they  arc  in 
a  style  of  which  the   faultless   execution  is  the   best  disci- 
pline of  taste,  whilst  its  glowing  eloquence   fills  every  gen- 
erous bosom  with  the  most  elevated  and   ennobling   moral 
enthusiasm. 

We    now    approach,  with    more   confidence,   the    second 
question:   IIow  far  is  it  worth  our   while  to  study  the  writ- 


lid  lie  at  ion  in   Charleston.  53 

ings  of  the  ancients  as  models,  and  to  make  them  a  rct^uhir 
part  of  an  academic  course.  We  shall  be  obliged  to  be 
more  brief  upon  this  branch  of  the  subject  than  we  could 
wish  to  be,  but  will  endeavor  to  urge  some  of  the  strongest 
grounds  in  favor  of  the  established  system. 

And  first,  it  is,  independently  of  all  regard  to  ihcir  e.v- 
cellence,  a  most  importaiit  consideration  that  our  whole 
literature,  in  every  part  and  parcel  of  it,  has  immediate  and 
constant  reference  to  these  writings.  This  is  so  true  that 
no  one,  who  is  not  a  scholar,  can  even  understand — without 
the  aid  of  labored  scholia,  which,  after  all,  can  never  afford 
a  just,  much  less  a  lively  idea,  of  the  beauties  of  the  text  — 
thousands  of  the  finest  passages  both  in  prose  and  poetry 
Let  any  one  who  doubts  this  open  Milton  where  he  pleases 
and  read  ten  pages  together,  and  we  think  he  will  confess 
that  our  opinion  is  well  founded.  Indeed,  a  knowledge  of 
Latin  and  Greek  is  almost  as  much  presupposed  m  our  liter- 
ature as  that  of  the  alphabet,  and  the  facts  or  the  fictions 
of  Ancient  History  and  Mythology  are  as  familiarl)-  alluded 
to  in  the  learned  circles  of  England  as  any  of  the  laws  or 
phenomena  of  nature.  They  form  a  sort  of  conventional 
world,  with  which  it  is  as  necessary  for  an  educated  man  to 
be  familiar  as  with  the  real.  Now,  if  there  is  no  sort  of 
knowledge  which  is  not  desirable  and  scarcely  any  that  is 
not  useful — if  it  is  worth  the  while  of  a  man  of  leisure  to  be- 
come versed  in  the  Chinese  characters  or  the  Sanscrit,  or  to 
be  able  to  decipher  the  ^Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  what 
shall  we  say  of  that  branch  of  learning  which  was  the  great 
fountain  of  all  European  literature — which  has  left  its  im- 
press upon  every  part  of  it,  of  which  we  are  every  moment 
reminded  by  its  beauties,  and  without  which  much  that  is 
most  interesting  in  it  is  altogether  asnigmatical  .■'  It  is  vain 
to  say  that  good  tran.slations  are  at  hand  which  supersede 
the  necessity  of  studying  the  originals.  Works  oi  taste  \t 
is  impossible  to  translate  ;  and  we  do  not  believe  there  is 
any  such  thing  in  the  world  as  a  faithful  version  that  ap- 
proaches to  the  excellence  of  the  original  work.  They  are 
casts  in  plaster  of  paris  of  the   Apollo  or  the  Venus— and, 


54  Mnror  Cotirtcnnys  A  it  nun/  Rt-riris.'. 

indeed,  not  near  so  good,  inasmnch  as  eloquence  and  poeti\' 
are  far  less  simple  and  more  difficult  of  imitation  than  the 
forms  of  sculpture  and  statuary.  There  remains  nothing- 
hut  the  body — and  even  that,  not  unfrequentlx'.  so  altered 
in  its  very  lineaments  that  its  author  would  scarcely  recoL;;- 
nize  it — while  all  "the  vital  c'race  is  wantini;.  the  native 
sweetness  is  j:!^one,  the  color  of  primeval  beauty  is  faded 
and  decayed."  It  will  not  be  so  easily  admitted  that  the 
same  objection  holds  in  works  of  which  utility,  nicrelx',  is 
considered  as  the  object,  such  as  histories,  ^irc.  \'et  it  cer- 
tainly docs.  The  wonderful,  the  magical  power  of  certain 
expressions  cannot  b\'  any  art  of  composition  be  transfused 
from  one  language  into  another.  The  associations  con- 
nected with  particular  words  and  phrases  must  be  acquired 
by  long  acquaintance  with  the  language  as  it  came  warm  from 
the  hearts  of  those  who  spoke  it,  or  they  are  frigid  and  even 
unmeaning.  What  translation  can  give  an\'  idea  to  the 
Knglish  reader  of  the  bitter  and  contemptuous  emphasis, 
and  the  powerful  effect  with  which  Demosthenes  pro- 
nounces his  M'v.x.-'jt.jv  av/)p,  or  of  the  force  of  that  eloquent  hor- 
ror and  astonishment  with  wiiich  Cicero  exclaims  against 
the  cnicifixiou  of  a  Roman  citizen? 

In  this  connexion,  we  would  insist  u[hmi  the  stores  oi 
knowledge  which  are  sealed  up  to  all  who  are  not  conver- 
sant with  the  learned  languages.  This  is  a  trite  topic,  but 
not  the  less  important  on  that  account.  By  far  the  most 
serious  and  engrossing  concern  of  man  —  revealed  religion  — 
is  built  upon  this  foundation.  The  meaning  of  the  .Scrip- 
tures, which  it  is  so  important  to  understand,  cm  be  ex- 
plained only  by  scholars,  and  the  controversies  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  turn  almost  exclusivel\'  upon  points  of  biblical 
criticism,  &c.  I  low  cati  a  divine,  whose  circumstances  allow 
him  any  leisure,  sit  tlown  in  ignorance  of  such  things?  How 
ran  he  consent  to  take  the  awful  information  which  he  im- 
]jarts  to  the  multitudes  committed  to  his  care,  at  second 
hand?  .Surely  here,  if  any  where,  it  may  emphatically  be 
said  tardi  ingcnii  est  conscctari  rivulos,  fontcs  rcruui  non  77- 
dcre.     Indeed,  this  single  consideration   is  weighty  enough, 


Kd  neat  ion  in   Charles/ oj!.  55 

to  m.'iintain  the  learned  lan<;ua;^-es  in  their  phiees  in  all  the 
Universities  of  Christendom. 

Hut  it  is  not  to  Theolos^nans  only  that  this  braneh  of  study 
is  of  great  importance.  How  is  the  Jurist  to  have  access  to 
the  Corpus  Juris  Cii-i/is,  of  which  Mr.  Grimke  expresses  so 
exalted  an  opinion.-'  We  agree  with  him  in  this  opinion, 
and  while  we  deem  with  a  mysterious  reverence  of  our  old 
and  excellent  Common  Law— uncodified  as  it  is—still  we 
would  have  our  lawyers  to  be  deeply  versed  in  the  juridical 
wisdom  of  antic^uit}'.  Why?  For  the  very  same  reason 
that  we  think  it  desirable  that  a  literary  man  should  be 
master  of  various  languages,  viz  :  to  make  him  distinguish 
what  is  essentiall}-,  universally  and  eternally  good  and  true, 
from  what  is  the  result  of  accident,  of  local  circumstances, 
or  the  fleeting  opinions  of  a  day.  That  most  invaluable  of 
intellectual  qualities — which  ought  to  be  the  object  of  all 
discipline,  as  it  is  the  perfection  of  all  reason — a  sound  judg- 
ment, can  be  acquired  only  by  such  diversified  and  compre- 
hensive comparisons.  All  other  systems  rear  up  bigots  and 
pedants,  instead  of  liberal  and  enlightened  philosophers. 
Besides,  every  school  has  its  mannerism  and  its  mania,  for 
which  there  is  no  cure  but  intercourse  with  those  who  are 
free  from  them,  and  constant  access  to  the  models  of  perfect 
and  immutable  excellence,  which  other  ages  have  produced, 
and  all  ages  have  acknowledged.  To  point  the  previous  ob- 
servations, which  are  of  very  general  application,  more  par- 
ticularly to  a  topic  touched  upon  before;  even  admitting 
that  modern  literature  were  as  widely  different  from  the 
ancient  as  the  enemies  of  the  latter  contend,  yet  that  would 
be  no  reason  for  neglecting  the  study  of  the  classics,  but 
just  the  contrary.  Human  nature  being  the  same  in  all 
ages,  we  may  be  sure  that  men  agree  in  more  points  than 
they  disagree  in,  and  the  best  corrective  of  the  extravagan- 
cies into  which  thviv  y\r///iarin'('s  betray  them,  is  to  contrast 
them  with  the  opposite  peculiarities  of  others.  If  the  ten- 
dency, therefore,  of  the  modern  or  romantic  style  is  to  mys- 
ticism, irregularity  and  exaggeration — and  that  of  the  classi- 
cal, to  an  excess  of  precision  and  severity,  he  would  be  least 


56  ^fnyor  Court nmvs  Anvimi  /vt./rTC. 

liable  to  Kill  iiUo  ihc  excesses  ol"  eitiicr,  w  lu)  was  cciuallx- 
versed  in  the  excellencies  of  both.  Cciiaiiil\-  a  ciitic  w  ho 
has  studied  both  Shakspeare  and  Sophocles,  must  have  a 
juster  notion  of  the  true  excellence  of  dramatic  composit- 
ion, than  he  who  has  only  studied  one  of  them.  Where 
the)"  agreed  lic'would  be  sure  the\-  were  both  rii^ht ;  where 
they  happened,  as  they  frequently  do,  to  differ,  he  would, 
at  once,  be  led  to  reflect  much,  before  lie  awarded  the  pref- 
erence to  either,  and  to  ha\e  a  care  lest,  in  indulg^ing  that 
preference,  he  should  overstep  the  bounds  of  propriety  and 
••  the  modesty  of  nature."  It  is  thus,  wc  repeat  it,  and  only 
thus,  that  sound  critics,  sound  ])hilosophers,  sound  legisla- 
tors, and  la\\\ers  worthy  of  their  noble  profession,  can  be 
formed. 

There  are  other  kinds  of  knowledge,  besides  what  is  inter- 
esting to  divines  and  jurists,  locked  uji  in  the  learned  lan- 
guages. Whole  branches  of  history  and  miscellaneous  lite- 
rature—of themselves  extensive  enough  to  occupy  the  study 
of  a  life.  Look  into  Du  Cange,  Muratori,  l-'abricius.  S:c.  In 
short,  we  pronounce,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  no 
man  can  make  any  pretensions  to  erudition,  who  is  not  vers- 
ed in  Greek  and  Latin.  He  must  be  forever  at  a  l'_)ss,  and 
unable  to  help  iiimsclf  to  what  he  wants  in  many  depart- 
ments of  knowledge,  even  supposing  him  to  ha\'e  the  curi- 
osit\-  to  cultivate  them,  which  is  hardl\-  to  be  expectetl  of 
one  who  will  not  be  at  the  pains  of  acquiring  the  ]:)roper 
means  to  do  so  with  success.  For  we  have  alwa\s  thought 
and  still  think— Mr.  (irimke's  speculative  opinions  being 
outweighed  by  his  own  practice — that  those  who  refuse  to 
study  a  branch  of  learning  so  fundamental  and  so  universally 
held  in  veneration  as  the  classics,  have  forgotten  "  tiie  know 
thyself,"  when  tiiey  prattle  about  profound  erudition.  In 
addition  to  all  this,  we  venture  to  aftirm  that  the  shortest 
way  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Ilistorw  Antiquities.  Phi- 
losoph)',  &c.,  of  all  those  ages,  whose  opinions  and  doings 
have  been  lecorded  in  Circek  and  Latin,  e\en  sujjposing 
1-nglish  writers  to  have  gone  over  the  same  ground,  is 
through   the   originals.     Compare   the    knowledge  which  a 


Iiducaiion  in   Cliarlcsion.  yj 

scholar  acquires,  nut  only  of  the  policy  and  the  res  gestce  of 
the  Roman  Emperors,  but  of  the  minutest  shades  and  in- 
most recesses  of  tlicir  character,  and  that  of  tlie  times  in 
which  they  reigned,  from  the  Hving  pictures  of  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius,  w  ith  the  cold,  general,  feeble,  and  wliat  is  worse, 
far  from  just  and  precise  idea  of  the  same  things,  com- 
municated by  modern  authors.  The  difference  is  incalcula- 
ble. It  is  that  between  the  true  Homeric  Achilles  and  the 
Monsieur  or  Monseigneur  Achille  of  the  I'heatre  Francais, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  with  his  bob  wig  and 
small  sword.  When  we  read  of  those  times  in  English,  we 
attach  modern  nieanings  to  ancient  words,  and  associate  the 
ideas  of  our  own  age  and  country,  with  objects  altogether 
foreign  from  them.  In  this  point  of  view,  as  in  every  other, 
the  cause  of  the  classics  is  that  of  all  sound  learning. 

We  mention  as  another  important  consideration,  that  the 
knowledge  of  these  languages  brings  us  acquainted,  fa- 
miliarly, minutely  and  impressively,  with  a  state  of  society 
altogether  unlike  an\'  thing  that  we  see  in  modern  times. 
When  we  read  a  foreign  author  of  our  own  day,  we  occa- 
sionally, indeed,  remark  differences  in  taste,  in  character  and 
customs;  but  in  general,  we  find  ourselves  cii  pays  dc 
coiniaissancc.  Modern  civilization,  of  which  one  most  im- 
portant elemcn';  is  a  common  religion,  is  pretty  uniform. 
But  the  moment  we  open  a  Greek  book,  we  are  struck  with 
the  change.  We  are  in  quite  a  new  world,  combining  all 
that  is  \\onderful  in  fiction,  with  all  that  is  instructive  in 
truth.  Manners  and  customs,  education,  religion,  national 
charactei",  every  thing  is  original  and  peculiar.  Consider 
the  priest  and  the  temple,  the  altar  and  the  sacrifice,  the 
chorus  and  the  festal  pomp,  the  gymnastic  exercises,  and 
those  C)l)'mpic  games,  whither  universal  Greece  repaired 
with  all  her  wealth,  her  strength,  lier  genius  and  taste — 
where  the  greatest  cities  and  kings,  and  the  other  first  men 
of  their  day,  partook  with  an  enthusiastic  ri\alr\-,  scarcely 
conceivable  to  us,  in  the  interest  of  the  occasion,  whether 
it  was  a  race,  a  boxing  match,  a  contest  of  musicians,  or  an 
oration,  or  a  noble  history  to  be  read  to  the  mingled 
8 


;8  MoYor  Courtcuny  s  Annual  RcviiXi'. 

throng — and  where  the  horse  and  the  rider,  tlie  chariot  and 
the  charioteer,  were  consecrated  by  the  honors  of  the  crown, 
and  the  renown  of  the  triumphal  ode.  Look  into  the 
theatres  where  "the  lofty  grave  tragedians"  contend,  in 
their  turn,  for  the  favor  of  the  same  cultivated  people,  and 
where  Aristophanes,  in  verses,  which.  b\-  the  confession  of 
all  critics,  were  never  surpassed  in  energ\'  and  spirit,  in  attic 
purity  and  the  most  exquisite  modulations  of  harmony,  is 
holding  up  Socrates — the  wisest  of  mankind— to  the  con- 
tem|)t  and  ridicule  of  the  mob;  if  that  Athenian  Dlmiuis, 
that  could  only  be  successfully  courted  with  such  verses, 
does  not  disdain  the  appellation.  Next  go  to  the  schools, 
or  rather  the  shady  walks  of  philosophy — single  one  object 
(jut  of  the  interesting  groupe— let  it  be  the  most  prominent — 
he,  in  short,  who  for  the  same  reason  was  made  to  play  so 
conspicuous  a  part  in  the  "Clouds."  Consider  the  habits  of 
this  hero  of  Greek  philosophy,  according  to  Xenophon's  ac- 
count"'^ of  them  ;  how  unlike  any  thing  v.  e  have  heard  of 
among  the  moderns ;  passing  his  whole  life  abroad  and  in 
public — carl)'  in  the  morning  visiting  the  g\-mnasia  and  the 
most  frequented  walks,  and  about  the  time  that  the  market- 
place was  getting  full,  resorting  thither,  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  day  presenting  himself  wheresoever  the  greatest  con- 
course of  people  was  to  be  found,  offering  to  answer  any 
question  in  philosoplu'  which  might  be  propounded  to  him 
b\-  the  inquisitive.  Above  all,  contemplate  the  fierce 
democracy  in  the  popular  assembK',  listening  to  the 
harangues  of  orators,  at  once,  with  the  jealousy  of  a  t\-rant 
and  the  fastidiousness  of  the  most  sensitive  critics,  and 
sometimes  with  the  lc\ity,  the  simplicity,  and  the  wa\\vard 
passions  of  childhood.  Read  their  orations — abo\c  all,  his. 
whose  incredible  pains  to  prepare  himself  for  the  perilous 
jjost  of  a  dcuiagoguc,  and  whose  triumphant  success  in  it, 
everybod)'  has  heard  of — how  dramatic,  how  mighty,  how 
sublime!  Think  of  the  face  of  the  country  itself,  its  monu- 
mental art,  its  cities  adorned  with  \\liatc\cr  is  most  perfect 
and    most    magnificent    in    architecture — its    ])ublic    places 

♦  .Mcm'.nili.  I.  A.   lv, 


Education  in   ( 'liarlcslon.  j^q 

peopled  with  the  forms  of  ideal  beauty — the  pure  air,  the 
warm  and  cloudless  sk)',  the  whole  earth  covered  with  the 
trophies  of  genius,  and  the  very  atmosph.ere  secmin;:^  to  shed 
(n'er  all  the  selectest  influence,  and  to  breathe,  if  we  may 
hazard  the  expression,  of  that  native  Ionian  elegance  wliich 
was  in  e\'er)'  object  it  enveloped. 

It  is  impossible  to  contemplate  the  annals  of  Greek  litera- 
ture and  art,  without  being  struck  with  them,  as  by  far  the 
most  extraordinary  and  brilliant  phenomenon  in  the  history 
of  the  human  mind.  The  very  language — even  in  its 
primitive  simplicity,  as  it  came  down  from  the  rhapsodists 
who  celebrated  the  exploits  of  Hercules  and  Theseus,  was 
as  great  a  wonder  as  any  it  records.  All  the  other  tongues 
that  civilized  men  have  spoken,  are  poor  and  feeble,  and 
barbarous,  in  comparison  of  it.  Its  compass  and  flexibilit)-, 
its  riches  and  its  powers,  are  altogether  unlimited.  It  not 
only  expresses  with  precision,  all  that  is  thought  or  k'nown 
at  any  given  period,  but  it  enlarges  itself  naturally,  with  the 
progress  of  science,  and  affords,  as  if  without  an  efiort,  a 
new  phrase,  or  a  systematic  nomenclature  v.henever  one  is 
called  for.  It  is  equally  adapted  to  every  variety  of  st)-Ie 
and  subject — to  the  most  shadowy  subtlety  of  distinction, 
and  the  utmost  exactnesss  of  definition,  as  well  as  to  the 
energy  and  the  pathos  of  popular  eloquence — to  the  niajest\-, 
the  elevation,  the  variety  of  the  Epic,  and  the  boldest 
license  of  the  Dithyrambic,  no  less  than  to  the  sweetness 
of  the  Elegy,  the  simplicity  of  the  Pastoral,  or  the  heedless 
gaiety  and  delicate  characterization  of  Corned)-,  Abo\-e 
all,  what  is  an  unspeakable  charm — a  sort  of  naivete  is 
peculiar  to  it,  and  appears  in  all  those  various  styles,  and  is 
cjuite  as  becoming  and  agreeable  in  a  historian  or  a  phihxso- 
pher — Xenophon  for  instance — as  in  the  light  and  jocund 
numbers  of  Anacreon.  Indeed,  were  there  no  other  object 
in  learning  Greek  but  to  see  to  wdiat  perfection  language  is 
capable  of  being  carried,  not  only  as  a  medium  of  communi- 
cation, but  as  an  instrument  of  thought,  we  sec  not  why  the 
time  of  a  young  man  .would  not  be  just  as  well  bestowed  in 
acquiring  a  knowledge  of  it — for  all   the  purposes,  at  least, 


6o  MoY'V    CoJirti'tinys  Aniiiin/  Kcitiic. 

ol  a  liberal  or  clcmentan-  education  -  as  in  learning  Algebra. 
another  specimen  of  a  language  or  arrangement   of  signs 
perfect  in  its  kind.     But  this  wonderful   idiom  happens  to 
have  been  spoken,  as  was  hinted  in  the  preceding  paragraph. 
by  a  race  as  wonderful.     The  very  first  monument  of  their 
"enius — the    most    ancient    relic  of  letters  in    the  Western 
\vorld — stands  to  this  day  altogether  unrivalled   in  the  ex- 
alted class  to  which   it  belongs.     What   was   the    history  of 
this  immortal   poem    and    of   its   great    fellow?     Was    it   a 
single  individual,  and  who  was  he,  that  composed   them.-' 
Had  he  any  master  or  model?     What  had  been  his  educa- 
tion, and  what  was  the  state  of  society  in  which  he  lived? 
These  questions  are  full  of  interest  to  a  philosophic  inquirer 
into  the   intellectual    history  of   the   species,  but    they  are 
especially  important  v.ith  a  view  to  the  subject  of  the  pres- 
ent discussion.     Whatever  causes  account  for  the  matchless 
excellence  of  these  primitive   poems,  and    for  that   of  the 
language  in  which  they  are  written,  will  go  far  to  explain 
the    extraordinary    circumstance,    that     the     same    favored 
people  left  nothing  unattempted   in   philosophy,  in  letters 
and  in  arts,  and  attempted    nothing   without    signal,  and  in 
some  cases,   unrivalled  success.     Winkchnan   undertakes  to 
assign  some  reasons  for  this  astonishing  sui)eriority  of  the 
Greeks,  and  talks  very  learnedly  about  a  fine  climate,  deli- 
cate organs,  exquisite  susceptibility,  the  full  de\xlopment 
of  the  human    form  by  gymnastic  exercises,  &:c.     For  our 
own  parts,  we  are  content  to  explain  the  phenomenon  after 
the   manner  of   the   Scottish   school  of  metaphysicians,  in 
which  we  learned  the  little  that  we  profess  to  know  of  that 
department   of   philosophy,  by  resolving  it  at  once  into  an 
original  law  of  nature:   in  other  words,  by  substantially,  but 
decently,  confessing  it  to  be  inexplicable.     But  whether  it 
was  idiosyncrasy  or  discipline,  or  whatever  was  the  cause, 
it  is  enough  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  discussion,  that 
\.\\c  fact  is  unquestionable. 

In  discussing  the  very  important  question  whether  bo\-s 
ought  to  be  made  to  study  the  classics  as  a  regular  part  of 
education,    the  innovators  put    the   case   in   the   strongest 


liducatioii  ill   Charleston.  6i 

possible  ni.inncr  against  the  present  system  ;  b\' arguing  as 
if  tiie  young  pupil,  under  this  discipHne,  was  to  learn  nothing 
else  but  language  itself.  We  admit  that  this  notion  has 
received  some  sort  ot  countenance  from  the  excessive  atten- 
tion paid  in  English  schools  to  prosody,  and  tlic  fact  that 
their  great  scholars  have  been,  perhaps  (with  many  excep- 
tions to  be  sure),  more  distinguished  by  the  refinement  of 
their  scholarship  than  the  extent  and  profoundness  of  their 
erudition.  But  the  grand  advantage  of  a  classical  education 
consists  far  less  in  acquiring  a  language  or  two,  which,  as 
languages,  arc  to  serve  fi^r  use  or  for  ornament  in  future 
life,  than  in  the  things  that  are  learned  in  making  that  ac- 
quisition, and  yet  more  in  the  iiiainicr  of  learning  those 
things.  It  is  a  wild  conceit  to  suppose  that  the  branches  of 
knowledge,  which  are  most  rich  and  extensive,  and  most 
deserve  to  engage  the  researches  of  a  mature  mind,  are, 
therefore,  the  best  for  training  a  young  one.  Metaphysics, 
for  instance,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  although  in  the 
last  degree  unprofitable  as  a  science,  is  a  suitable  and  ex- 
cellent, perhaps,  a  necessary  part  of  the  intellectual  disci- 
pline of  }'outh.  On  the  contrar}',  international  law  is  ex- 
tremeh'  important  to  be  known  by  publicists  and  statesmen  ; 
but  it  would  be  absurd  to  put  Vattel  (as  we  have  ourselves 
seen  it  done  in  a  once  celebrated  academy,  in  a  certain  part 
of  the  United  States)  into  the  hands  of  a  lad  of  fifteen  or 
sixteen.  We  will  admit,  therefore,  what  has  been  roundly 
asserted  at  hazard,  and  without  rhyme  or  reason,  that  clas- 
sical scholars  discontinue  these  studies  after  they  are  grown 
wise  enough  to  know  their  futility,  and  only  read  as  much 
Greek  and  Latin  as  is  necessary  to  keep  up  their  knowledge 
of  them,  or  rather  to  save  appearances  and  gull  credulous 
people;  yet  we  maintain  that  the  concession  does  not  affect 
the  result  of  this  controversy  in  the  least.  We  regard  the 
whole  period  of  childhood  and  of  youth — up  to  the  age  of 
sixteen  or  seventeen,  and  perhaps  longer— as  one  allotted 
by  nature  to  growth  and  improvement  in  the  strictest  sense 
of  those  words.  The  flexible  powers  are  to  be  trained  rather 
than  tasked— to  be  carefully  and  continually  practised  in 


62  Aftiyor  Coiirtiiitiys  .In  una  I  Rrvii-ic. 

the  preparcilor\-  exercises,  but  nut  l()  be  lo.iclcd  witli  bur- 
tlicns  that  nia\'  crush  thcin.  ov  be  broken  dow  n  b\-  over- 
strained efforts  of  the  race.  It  is  in  \outh  that  Mt>ntaigne's 
maxim,  al\va\-s  excellent,  is  espcciall\'  app]icabie--that  the 
important  question  is,  not  who  is  most  learned,  but  who  has 
learned  the  best.  Now,  we  confess  we  have  no  faith  at  all 
in  young  prodigies — in  }our  philosophers  in  teens.  We 
liave  generally  found  these  precocious  smatterers  sink  in  a 
few  )'ears  into  barrencss  and  inibecilitx',  and  that  as  they 
begin  by  being  men  when  thc\'  ought  to  be  bo\-s,  so  they 
end  in  being  boys  when  they  ought  to  be  men.  If  we  woukl 
have  good  fruit,  we  must  wait  until  it  is  in  season.  Nature 
herself  has  pointed  out,  too  clearly  to  be  misunderstood, 
the  proper  studies  of  childhood  and  youth.  The  senses  are 
first  developed — observation  and  memor\'  lollow — then 
imagination  begins  to  dream  and  to  create — afterwards 
ratiocination  or  the  dialectical  propensit\-  and  faculty  shoots 
up  with  great  rankness — and,  last  of  all,  tiie  crowning  per- 
fection of  intellect,  sound  judgment  and  solid  reason,  which. 
by  much  experience  in  life,  at  length  ripens  into  w  isdom. 
The  vicissitudes  of  the  seasons,  and  the  consequent  jchanges 
in  the  face  of  nature,  and  the  cares  and  occupations  of  the 
husbandman,  are  not  more  clearly  ciistinguishetl  or  more 
unalterably  ordained.  To  break  in  upon  this  iiarmonious 
order,  to  attempt  \.o  anticipate  these  prc-establislied  neriotls, 
what  is  it,  as  Cicero  has  it,  but,  after  the  manner  of  the 
(jiants,  to  war  against  the  laws  of  the  Universe,  and  the 
wisdom  that  created  it?  And  w  h  v  do  so?  Is  not  the 
space  in  human  life,  between  the  eightii  antl  the  twertieth 
year,  cjuite  large  enough  for  acquiring  nc-ry  bianch  ol 
liberal  knowledge,  as  well  as  they  need,  or,  indeed,  cm  be 
acquired  in  \outh  ?  Vov  instance,  we  cite  the  opinion  of 
Condorcet,  repeatedly  quoted,  with  approbation,  by  Dugald 
Stewart,  and.  if  w^c  mistake  not,  by  Professor  IMayfair  too 
(both  of  them  the  highest  authorit\-  on  such  a  subject  i,  that 
any  one  ma\-,  under  competent  teachers,  acquire  all  that 
Xcwtr)n  or  La  Place  knew,  in  ta'o  years.  The  same  obser- 
\ation,  of  cr)urse.  applies  n  forliori  to  an}'  other  branch  of 


Education   in   Charleston.  63 

science.  As  for  the  modern  languages,  the  study  of  French 
ought  to  be  begun  earl)-  for  the  sake  of  the  pronunciation, 
and  continued  through  the  whole  course  as  it  may  be,  Miih- 
out  the  smallest  inconvenience.  Of  German  we  say  nothing, 
because  we  cannot  speak  of  our  own  knowledge  ;  but  for 
Italian  and  Spanish,  however  difficult  they  may  be — 
especially  their  poetry — to  a  mere  EngHsh  scholar,  they  are 
so  easy  of  acquisition  to  any  one  who  understands  Latin, 
that  it  is  not  worth  while  even  to  notice  them  in  our  scheme. 
All  that  we  ask  then,  is,  that  a  boy  should  be  thoroughly 
taught  the  ancient  languages  from  his  eighth  to  his  six- 
teenth )'ear,  or  thereabouts,  in  which  time  he  will  have  his 
taste  formed,  his  love  of  letters  completeh',  perhaps  enthu- 
siastically awakened,  his  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  uni- 
versal grammar  perfected,  his  memory  stored  with  the  his- 
tory, the  geography  and  the  chronology  of  all  antiquit}-, 
and  with  a  vast  fund  of  miscellaneous  literature  besides,  his 
imagination  kindled  with  the  most  beautiful  and  glowing 
passages  of  Greek  and  Roman  poetry  and  eloquence,  all  the 
rules  of  criticism  familiar  to  him,  the  sayings  of  sages  and 
tlie  achievements  of  heroes,  indelibly  impressed  upon  his 
heart.  lie  will  have  his  curiosity  fired  for  further  ac- 
quisition, and  find  himself  in  possession  of  the  golden  ke}-s 
which  open  all  the  recesses  v/here  the  stores  of  knowledge 
have  ever  been  laid  up  by  civilized  man.  The  conscious- 
ness of  strength  will  give  him  confidence,  and  he  will  go  to 
the  rich  treasures  themselves  and  take  what  he  wants,  in- 
stead of  picking  up  eleemosynary  scraps  from  those  whom, 
in  spite  of  himself,  he  will  regard  as  his  betters  in  literature. 
Me  will  be  let  into  that  great  com.munion  of  scholars 
throughout  all  ages  and  all  nations— like  that  more  awful 
communion  of  saints  of  the  Holy  Church  Universal— and 
feel  a  sympathy  with  departed  genius,  and  with  the  enlight- 
ened and  the  gifted  minds  of  other  countries,  as  they  ap- 
pear before  him,  in  the  transports  of  a  sort  of  Vision  Beati- 
fic, bowing  down  at  the  same  shrines  and  glowing  with  the 
same  holy  love  of  whatever  is  most  pure  and  fair,  and  ex- 
alted and  divine  in  human   nature.     Above  all,  our  Amen- 


r>4  J/iivor  Ce'i/r/iz/in's  .litiinal  Kri'iitv. 

can  \outh  will  learn  that  liberty— which  is  succt  to  all 
men,  but  which  is  the  /*tission  of  proud  minds  that  can- 
not stoop  to  less — has  been  the  nurse  of  all  that  is  sublime 
in  character  and  genius.  They  will  see  her  form  and  feel 
her  influence  in  every  thinjj^  that  antiquity  has  left  for  our 
admiration — that  bards  consecrated  their  harps  to  her- 
that  she  spoke  from  the  lips  of  miy[hty  orators — that  she 
foui^ht  and  conqueretl,  acted  and  suffered  with  the  hcroe- 
whom  she  had  formeil  and  inspired  ;  and  after  ages  of  glory 
and  \iitue  fell  with  ////;/ — her  all-accomplished  hojie — //;'///, 
the  1. AS r  (IF  Romans — the  self-immolated  martyr  of  Phil- 
ippi.  Our  \oung  student  will  find  his  devotion  to  his 
countr)- — his  free  country — become  at  once  more  fer\id 
.md  more  enlightened,  and  think  scorn  of  the  wretched 
creatures  who  ha\'c  scolTed  at  the  sublime  simplicit)-  of  her 
institutions,  and  "esteem  it"'  as  one  expresses  it,  who 
learned  to  be  a  republican  in  the  schools  of  antiquity, 
"  much  better  to  imitate  the  old  and  elegant  humanit\- oi 
(jrcece,  than  the  barbaric  pride  of  a  Norwegian  or  llunnisli 
stateliness ;  "  and  let  us  add,  will  come  much  more  to  tk - 
spise  that  shuisii  and  nauseating  subservienc)'  to  rank  and 
title  with  which  all  European  literature  is  steeped  through 
and  through.  If  .Americans  arc  to  stud)'  any  foreign  liter 
ature  at  all,  it  ought  undoubtedly  to  be  the  Classical,  (iii<! 
isjuciallv  ///(■  dricky 


EDUCATION  IN  CHARLESTON,  S.  C. 


From  the  City  Tear  Book,  1882. 


CONTENTS. 

I — Manual  Training  Recommfnded  in  Common  Schools — Its  Prac 
TicAL  Operation  in  the  Workingman's  School  in  New  York. 

II— Superintendent  Simons'  Report  of  City  Public  Schools. 

Ill— Holy  Communion  Church  Institute— Catholic  Schools— Wal- 
lingford  Academy — Avery  Normal  Institute. 

IV— Public  School  Work  in  South  Carolina  in  1S82,  from  the  An- 
nual Report  of  the  Staie  Superintendent  of  Education. 

V-  Visit  of  the  Rev.  A.  D.  Mayo,  D.  D.,  to  Charleston. 

VI— Act  of  General  Assembly  Rearranging  City  School  Districts 
and  Providing  for  a  New  School  Board  at  the  Municipal 
Election  December,  18S3. 

VII — .\NNUAL  Report  of  High  School— Classics   and   Physical  Cul- 
ture leading  fe.atures. 

VIII— The  College  of  Charleston— Founded  1785— The  facilities  it 
affords  for  Liberal  Education  at  Home,  and  its  Claims  upon 
THE  Community. 

IX — Reopening  of  the  Citadel  Academy  October  ist,  1882. 
X— Classical  Learning— An  Essay  by  the  late  Hon.  Hugh  S.  Le- 
gare,  from  the  Southern  Review,  1828. 


Hon.  L.  F.  Yoninans  South  Carolina  College  Address — 1S81. 

"Shall  I  tell  this  audience  that  in  all  contests  in  life,  from  the  most  insignifi- 
cant to  the  most  important,  from  the  Derby  and  the  Goodwood  Turf  to  the 
great  Olympic  races  of  life  for  the  grandest  prizes  of  human  ambition  and 
earthly  interest,  it  is  training,  preparation,  perfect  education,  that  always  wins? 
What  makes  the  huge  wall  crash  before  the  course  of  the  slight  ball?  'Tis  ac- 
celerated educated  force.  Life  is  real.  Life  is  earnest.  Life  is  the  verb  to  do. 
Life  is  otywv^ — strife  ;  and  in  strife  in  this  right  masterful  world,  the  weaker 
must  go  to  the  wall.  'Imperiuin'  said  Sallust  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  in 
the  regal  language  of  Rome,  'itiiptriutii  his  artibus  retinetur  qiiibus  initio parttim 
est.'  Empire,  command,  e^tcellence,  influence,  are  retained,  and  can  be  retained, 
only  by  the  exercise  of  those  high  qualities  of  the  soul  by  which  they  were  origi- 
nally obtained.  This  truth  is  resonant  on  every  page  of  recorded  history  from 
the  grey  d^wn  of  antiquity  to  the  year  of  grace  in  which  we  live  ;  it  has  been 
echoed  and  re-echoed  down  all  the  corridors  of  time.  As  they  sank  for  the  last 
time  beneath  the  wave  which  has  engulfed  so  many  priceless  argosies,  it  has 
rung  in  the  ears  of  mighty  peoples  that  have  preceded  us ;  it  may  ring  again  in 
the  ears  of  as  mighty  peoples  that  may  succeed  us ;  it  will  ring  in  ours,  if  we 
neglect  the  priceless  lessons  which  it  teaches." 


» 


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This  book  is  DUE  od  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DEC      1  1965 

THREE  WEEKS  FROM  DATe|oF  RECEIPT 
MON-RENEWABLE 


'^EC'D  COL.  LIB. 

''EB 1  6  1965 


Form  L9 — 15m-10,'48  (B1039 )  444 


Charleston,  :i  .0 


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63      . 
1382   Charleston. 


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363 
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1882 


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